Pacific Sentinel, Virtual Graduation? June 2020, Volume 5 Issue 9

the PACIFIC SENTINEL Volume V Issue IX June 2020

Virtual Graduation?

COVID-19: Updates, Remote Learning, Incarceration Local Businesses Need Support Labor Unions in Film The Debate Upon a Hill: Josh Cohen v. Ronald Schmuck & more!

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JUNE 2020 CONTENTS Letter From the Editor 3-5 NEWS The Shift to Remote Learning 6-7 Added Punishment (Analysis) 8 Oregon Reopens 9 OPINION The Debate Upon A Hill (Satire) 10-12 Remarks from the Author on “Josh Cohen” 13 Kill the Death Penalty 14 Grateful PowerPoint Grad 15-17 Virtual Commencement Blues 18-19 Postpone Don’t Cancel 20-21 Neoliberalism Is the Disease 22-25 No Time to Change 26-27 Why You Should Bake Sourdough 28-29 Skateboarding During Quarantine 30-31 Virus of Nihilism 32-33 ARTS AND CULTURE The Trolls Have Killed Cinema… Maybe 34-35 Tiger King for a Day 36-37 Cultural Food Appropriation 38 Unions on the Silver Screen 39-42 FUNNY PAGE 43

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jake Johnson NEWS EDITOR Vivian Veidt OPINIONS EDITOR McKinzie Smith ARTS AND CULTURE EDITORS McKinzie Smith and Shane Johnson PRODUCTION MANAGER Haley Riley MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Bee Torrez DESIGNERS Farah Alkayed, Kacie Cooper, May Walker, Haley Riley ILLUSTRATORS Josh Gates, Greer Siegel, Haley Riley, Ciaran Dillon, Kami Gould, May Walker, Bailey Granquist, Greer Siegel, Hailey Blum FRONT COVER Kami Gould BACK COVER Greer Siegel FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS Jake Johnson, Van Vanderwall, Emma CrowE, Vivian Veidt, Sophie Meyers, Andrew Porter, McKinzie Smith, Claire Golden, Nick Gatlin, Saqif Maqsud We are hiring editors for our News, Arts and Culture, and Opinion sections; we’re also need reporters, writiers, video and audio producers, animators, and cartoonists! Join our team! Apply at thepacificsentinel.com/jobs

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Bon Voyage!

I’m goin’ out on a high note June 2020, school’s almost out for summer George Floyd: Police respond to police brutality protests with more police brutality Just when we thought the world couldn’t get any more intense, the killing of George Floyd

by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin sparked nationwide—and global—protests at a magnitude I certainly can’t remember in this country. Structural racism, disproportionate use of brutal force against Black people by police officers, and a refusal to hold police and racist actions by others accountable has led us here. And the people have had enough. Here in Portland and around the country we see American police recklessly and heartlessly terrorizing protesters, passersby, and the journalists who are covering protests. The president is trying to use the military to quell protests. Peaceful protesters in front of the white house were tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets to make way for Trump’s photo op at a church where he tried to figure out how you hold books.

I think this issue is an interesting sort of time capsule from the world just before this new moment, and it’s interesting to look back at now.

It’s Pride Month! Celebrate and remember that Pride exists because of the The Stonewall Uprising, a riot and protest for liberation from marginalization and targeted police violence against the LGBTQ community. Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, was one of the prominent people behind that movement.

Johnson recognized the importance of supporting and standing up for each other. As Johsnon said, there is “No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”

Black Lives Matter

al in Iraq; there were the unprecedented impeachment hearings and acquittal of President Trump based largely as a result of a dangerous argument: if Trump leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid in exchange for personal political favors to help him get reelected that would neither be criminal nor unacceptable for a president to do; and finally, there is the arc of ye olde coronavirus.

Feb. 2: Trump said “we pretty much shut it down.” Feb. 26: Trump said “the risk to the American People remain[ed] very low” since there were only 15 cases in the U.S. at the time. March 9: Trump asserted that since the flu kills 27,000 to 70,000 people per year, the coronavirus was being overhyped. March 24: the lieutenant governor of Texas told Fox News that old people should be willing to sacrifice themselves to save the economy; later that day Trump said the cure can’t be worse than the problem—implying that the hit to the economy because of shelter in place orders is worse than letting hundreds of thousands of Americans die. April 10: Trump said we should be happy we’re only likely to lose 60,000 people to COVID-19 since it’ll be less than the previous estimates of 100,000 deaths. April 17: Trump tweeted support for protestors who rallied against stay at home orders—by blocking ambulances, and carrying assault rifles in government buildings, and wearing MAGA hats while waving Trump flags. April 27: Trump asserted that Illinois was one of the examples of states being poorly run by Democrats; on May 1st a protestor outside the Illinois state capital held a sign with the German phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei,JB” which translates to “work sets

you free,” a propagandistic phrase the Nazi’s had on the gates of Auschwitz. April 29: Jared Kushner says that we should look at Trump’s response to the pandemic as a “great success story,” despite the near-million cases in the U.S. at the time. May 16: Eric Trump says that shelter in place restrictions around the country are a Democratic conspiracy to milk the pandemic in order to prevent Trump from holding campaign rallies. May 21: even with many citizens sheltering in place, COVID-19 has killed 93,061 people in the U.S. The U.S. and South Korea had their first cases on the same day, January 20, 2020. On May 1, South Korea reported no new cases. But a week and a half later there was cause for alarm when 54 new cases were reported and linked to the reopening of some bars and clubs. South Korea’s total case count is, as of May 21, 10,874 with 256 COVID-19 deaths. Their population is 51.64 million—relative to population size, that would be like if the U.S. only had 1,627 deaths instead of 93,061 and 69,110 cases instead of 1.6 million. Unlike our president and his associates, when South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the country set a global standard for its response to the spread of the coronavirus he had the credibility and numbers to show for it. Additionally, even though President Moon’s country has done an exceptional job at curbing the spread and preventing unnecessary death, he has still cautioned the country to be prepared for a “prolonged war” with COVID-19.

But it’s not only that, at least half the people I know are currently out of work. The unemployment rate in the U.S. as of May 21 is 14.7%.

This is the highest official rate on record in the country’s history—in 1933 it is estimated that rate was around 25%—and The Guardian predicts the current number will rise above 20% in the coming months. Vice reported that 24% of people in the U.S. didn’t pay their rent or mortgage in April and 31% didn’t pay in May. Meanwhile the stock market seems to be doing just fine after realizing that just because American workers are struggling doesn’t mean they have to be. As a result of the COVID-19 pan-

Letter from the editor, May 25: This is my last issue with The Sentinel, so I’m gonna spend a little more time with you in this letter than usual. I graduate in June, and maybe I’m a little sentimental, but this magazine has been my life for the past two years. It seemed there were two approaches to my departure from the magazine: the graceful disappearance, where I do my job like any other month and then vanish into the sunset; or spend a little extra time with y’all and write about it.

It seemed like it might be a regretfully missed opportunity to not say goodbye, so that’s what I’m gonna do over the course of this three-page letter. (Three pages, has he lost his damn mind?

Absolutely, and absolutely).

2020 so far—pretty chill year right?!??!?

Like most school years, this one has been grueling, long, and is rapidly, suddenly, over.

Unlike most years, 2020 has been completely and utterly batshit crazy: The year started with the unprovoked killing of an Iranian GenerTHE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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demic, Jeff Bezos’s wealth is estimated to have risen rather significantly: from the start of the pandemic to the middle of April by $24 billion.

In April, the defense department brought 85 refrigerated semi-trucks to New York City so they could be converted into “makeshift morgues” to temporarily store and transport dead bodies that were piling up in hospitals from COVID-19.

States are beginning to reopen parts of their economies, but we should all be careful and continue to be flexible. Unfortunately, this pandemic doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to give us much of a break. Every step toward reopening presents an opportunity to royally fork ourselves. Customers are getting upset at safety guidelines, but these safety guidelines are here to protect us. Be nice to retail, restaurant, grocery workers, USPS mail carriers and clerks, sanitation workers, and others you encounter; give them space, wear face masks, wash your hands, and bring hand sanitizer around if you can. We’ve done this well in Oregon by being safe, no need to throw it all away now.

Optimistically, there is less traffic on the roads. While many people like going into the office, the pandemic has proved that there are tons of workers who don’t technically have to go into the office to do their jobs. We should hang onto this by continuing to allow and encourage workers who can work from home to do so. This would net huge preventative health positives in the prevention of normal diseases like the flu and common cold: if you think you might have a cold, maybe you don’t have to go into your tiny office and spread it to the other workers trying to scrape out a living selling air filters over the phone, Karl.

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

So long and thanks for all the fish Over the past four academic years I’ve learned an incredible amount about the world and myself as a result of my education at Portland State University. Most of that time has been spent dutifully winding my way down into the sub basement of SMSU to participate in student media’s journalistic pursuits.

When I came to PSU for my orientation, I noticed there were some typos, silly mistakes, or even stylistic choices that could have been improved in the school’s weekly newspaper. It was Portland State University Vanguard’s “Orientation Guide 2016.” I thought I could help copy-edit or make myself useful in other ways; it turns out the applications were reviewed by the author of a piece I had marked up pretty bad—which went over as expected (not well). I don’t remember hearing anything back. I came in full of foolishly unmerited self-confidence.

Maybe that was the real reason I didn’t hear anything back, maybe there was some arrogance that came through in my application.

Over Christmas break I ran into the Editor in Chief of The Vanguard at a karaoke place, she told me to send in another application. Humbled, I worked hard on my application and writing samples. A little while later I was hired and started out in the News section, reporting on such fascinating goings on as ASPSU Senate and board of trustees meetings.

For those of you who have been a part of making PSU’s Student Media as dynamic as it is, I can’t thank you enough; and thank you all for making me feel like I vaguely had a second home down there. Thank you to all the editors and contributors who have worked for The Pacific Sentinel over the past two years, it’s been a wild ride and we’ve made a ton of really great stuff that we should all feel really proud of.

Thank you to every one of you, from the bottom of my heart I am deeply humbled and grateful.

Join student media If you like what you encounter in The Pacific Sentinel and The PSU Vanguard and think that it is a pretty cool thing we do and that maybe you would want to see what it’s like to work in journalism I can’t encourage you strongly enough to apply. It’s hard to picture my education experience at PSU without student media.

Before I started, I felt like I could fade in and out of my experience at PSU; but now, three and a quarter years later, I have gained many new skillsets, confidence, and found a community of people I care deeply about.

The writing, research, and self-advocacy I have learned at PSU is largely due to my experience in student media. I am a much more well-rounded person, not just in skillsets and pant size, than I was before I started. Thanks to my experiences in student media I have interviewed, encountered, and analyzed the perspectives of many more people and situations than I ever would have without it. All of that experience has made my state school tuition price feel like a goddamn steal. Also, we pay you to work for The Pacific Sentinel and The Vanguard.

It is easy to understate just how much more effective my written and verbal communication skills have become since working for these publications. Not only did I need to become effective at gathering data, information, and perspective about stories, I also needed to figure out how to cut them down and how to make sure the information I was creating was written in a way that could be understood. These are skills I learned in the sub basement and out working on assignments. Just because we’re trapped inside for a while doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities to

learn about journalism, there definitely are.

If you want to be a better writer, storyteller, researcher, photographer, videographer, designer, illustrator, manager, and maybe even develop better people skills... I am literally incapable of telling you how much opportunity exists in the, now virtual, sub basement. They even have a drone, so the sky could literally be the limit— well, whatever the max altitude of the drone is would technically be the limit.

Join us, rack up some sweet published work for your portfolio, CV, and resume.

Looking ahead I am very excited about the magazine’s leadership and life moving forward. Vivian Veidt is taking the reins as Executive Editor of The Sentinel, I know that it will be in good hands. Vivian is organized, incredibly smart, knows words a lot better than I do, and has a strong grasp on the importance of ethics and responsible journalism. Haley Riley has not only done an incredible job for the design, production, and growth of her team but is also a fierce advocate for the designers, illustrators, and photographers that work for her. Our Opinion, Arts and Culture, and News sections have consistently been raising the bar month after month with compelling and engaging pieces.

Thanks y’all, can’t wait to see what you do, Here’s to you, here’s to June.

June 2020 This issue is jam-packed. Our contributors and editors have really stepped things up to send you into the summer with a lot of incredible articles to read and have truly given us all a lot of important things to think about.

We’re going to hear about some more COVID-19 updates. As a short side note: we talked about burnout last issue, there is a lot of rough news out there. Make sure to give your-

self the mental space to be okay during all this, but also make sure to check in every once in a while to be aware of what’s going on. Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power—strike a healthy balance.

We take a look at how the spread of coronavirus is affecting prisons and jails, incarcerated people, and the communities around those institutions; a major pandemic takeaway: even if you’re a cold-hearted monster who doesn’t care about the health of people in the criminal justice system, their health affects your health and the health of those you love, too. In a further look at the criminal justice system one of our writer talks about the reasons that the death penalty is ready to die.

We see how the switch to remote learning is affecting our education systems, educators, and students. Virtual commencement is pretty controversial, we definitely hear you. Three articles hash out whether or not PSU’s decision to host the class of 2020’s graduation via a live-streamed glorified slideshow was the right choice (at a press conference on May 23, then-Interim President Stephen Percy said PSU is working with ASPSU to figure out another way to honor and celebrate the class of 2020’s achievements in addition to the virtual ceremony).

Local businesses are having a tough go of things: We look at how some movie theaters are adapting during this crisis; we stop into Portland’s Cal Skate skateboarding shop while trying to figure out whether or not skateboarding during quarantine is a crime or just healthy exercise like biking and running that is okay to do; and we revisit one of Portland’s most notorious controversies: white people profiting off of other cultures by appropriating their food— while we all had too much fun with this three years ago, the pandemic has added extra layers to the story.

Many people have opted to reenact the Great British Baking Show in their own homes during Oregon’s “Stay Home, Save Lives” order, including one of our writers who talks about the cultural legacies and connections we have to ancient history when we bake sourdough.

An author examines why they think James Bond should remain 007, and that the character should continue to be portrayed by a white man. The writer alleges that if we want to point the finger of inequity anywhere, it should be at ourselves for being too lazy and uncreative to create a new, equally, or more, compelling series for people of color and women to portray the leading roles in.

A compelling piece of satire exists as a result of the very real reality that Trump is widely supported by zealous evangelicals of the religious right. T he author creates a debate between Josh Cohen and Ronald Schmuck. Cohen debates the schmuck through the adaptation of bible verses which contradict Schmuck’s worldview, leadership style, and concern for humanity.

We take a look at how neoliberalism has been working out, examine the cultural phenomenon of Tiger King, and talk about why continuing to care is important. We also take a very enlightening tour of the way the medium of film has been used to disseminate ideas about labor unions: some really great, some really bad, and some just absurd propaganda.

I’m incredibly proud and impressed by the work that went into this issue and I truly hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have.

Party on in a socially distant fashion and take care of yourselves and each other, Signing off forever, <3 Jake Johnson Executive Editor

illustrations by Josh Gates THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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The Shift to Remote Learning Challenges, drawbacks, and various approaches in continuing to educate during the spread of coronavirus

by Emma CrowE illustrations by Greer Siegel 6

NEWS

Governor Kate Brown has announced that kindergarten through twelfth grade and post-secondary education in Oregon has transferred to remote learning until the fall of 2020 due to the outbreak of coronavirus in Oregon. According to Education Week, 40 additional states have also mandated or recommended school closures through this academic year as of April 23. More states are expected to follow suit with the increase in official state closures.

According to the Oregon Health Authority, as of March 12 Oregon has identified over 3,300 cases of coronavirus. Social distancing is being widely implemented at the strong recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), because coronavirus spreads through close contact. To combat the spread of coronavirus in Oregon, Governor Brown announced her “Stay Home, Save Lives” executive order and the physical closure of K–12 and post-secondary schools. In Governor Brown’s education announcement, she reiterated that the health and safety of students is her main priority.

Remote learning varies based on the state in which it is taking place, and the level of education. At Portland State University, all classes that had previously been scheduled as in-person classes are being offered either solely online or as a combination of online learning and virtual class time. Similar strategies are in effect at other universities located in states with recommended or required stay at home orders.

Remote learning looks different for K–12 students. According to Washington State’s Office

of Superintendent of Public Instruction, K–12 students will not be required to attend virtual class at a specific time. The students are required to complete assignments and other tasks their teachers post online. Schools can also provide printed materials to students at their discretion. While attending virtual class is not a requirement, it is recommended due to already decreased facetime with teachers. Teachers will be available outside of virtual class time for office hours.

Through these unprecedented times, students can expect leeway when it comes to official grades. According to Washington State’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, K–12 students will not receive a pass, fail, or no credit for any of their classes. If the student does not follow the expectations of the individual class, they may be given an incomplete grade. An incomplete grade can be made up in summer school or online classes. Technically, K–12 students in Washington cannot fail any class that they take from now until the end of the current academic year. There is also a level of flexibility at the post-secondary education level. According to Portland State University, students will now be able to opt-in to a pass/ no pass grading option for their spring term classes until June 1. This is to allow for students to view their current progress, and adjust their grading option if they feel it is necessary. Normally, the university puts a cap on the amount of classes a student can receive a pass/no pass grade for, but, due to the current coronavirus outbreak and remote learning situation, any

pass/no pass grade from the current spring term will not count towards those limits. Pass/ no pass grades will also not affect the acceptance of credits to fill degree or major requirements.

Students have been open about their thoughts regarding remote learning. Julissa Castiano is a Sophomore at Portland State University, and was a resident assistant until she resigned at the end of March 2020. When asked about her thoughts regarding remote learning, Castiano stated that she was concerned for students who have trouble learning online. Castiano is not alone in her concern, and is backed by a statement made by Maxwell Johnston, a Freshman at Portland State University. Johnston stated, “I have never taken an online class in my entire life [...] I’ll figure it out I guess.” Along with the concern for their individual learning, students are also concerned about the decrease in social interaction. According to Portland State University, all offices on campus will be closed to in-person meetings and/or events. Governor Brown has also ordered the closing of all nonessential businesses in Oregon. Julian Mellem, transfer student at Portland State University, is worried about how his decrease in social interaction will affect his college experience and stated, “I feel so isolated. We haven’t been able to go out and do anything, which is the whole reason I came to college.” With the implementation of remote learning, some students have decided to return to their hometowns for the duration of the spring term.

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COVID-19 pandemic strains prisons across the U.S. illustrations by Ciaran Dillon

by Sophie Meyers

There is no difference between prison health and public health when it comes to communicable diseases; what you see within a prison environment will inevitably affect the surrounding community. This trend emerged much earlier, dating all the way back to the 16th century during the time of typhus fever; and again during the 1997 and 2001 outbreaks in overcrowded prisons that led to a global resurgence of tuberculosis. Today, these concerns have re-emerged about carceral institutionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; inability to provide the social distancing necessary to prevent another explosion of disease among institutionalized individuals during the coronavirus pandemic.

Prisoners in the U.S. have not been afforded proper protections against the coronavirus and are forced into environments that go against recommendations put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This results in higher rates of the virus among those incarcerated and in turn spreads to staff, visitors, and those without any connection to prisons or jails as a result of community spread.

In many correctional facilities it is impossible to implement the recommended CDC social distancing measures; masks may not be allowed, soap and other cleaning supplies may be restricted, and medical care may be limited or difficult to access.

Prisons are high risk environments for viruses to spread for many reasons. First, they are often overcrowded; there are more than 7,000 incarceration facilities beyond their recommended capacity in the U.S, 2.3 million people incarcerated and another half million are employed at these facilities. Additionally, prisons often lack adequate health services and empathy from the public and government. In addition to the prob8

NEWS ANALYSIS

lem of the adequacy of healthcare facilities in prisons and jails, many people in custody will often avoid seeking medical treatment when they show COVID-19 related symptoms due to inability to pay healthcare expenses and fear of isolation, a typical response to coronavirus infection in prisons.

While both congress and the U.S. Constitution require prison systems to care for the health of incarcerated populations, they often lack the ability to provide acute medical attention and rely heavily on public hospitals to care for patients. This adds to the already overrun public hospitals due to coronavirus.

Those in prisons are more vulnerable to COVID-19 than communities outside due to higher demographics of high risk people as defined by the CDC. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 44% of people in prisons are reported to have ever had a chronic condition compared to 31% of people in public communities. A polling of prisons conducted in 2011 showed that about a quarter of incarcerated people in the U.S. are obese. The study also showed that 40% were living with a chronic illness of some kind. In Oregon, despite an overall reduction of people in custody over the past several years, we have the fourth largest population of elderly people in our prisons. According to the CDC all of these characteristics lead to a higher risk of developing COVID-19.

The opportunities for coronavirus to be transmitted outside of prison facilities are plenty.

Staff who move in and out of prisons daily, prison residents who require outside medical treatment or must attend court, those who are released or transferred to a different incarceration facility, and visitors can all act as carriers of the

virus from prisons into the larger community. In jails, the shorter sentencing and more frequent transfer of people make it even more likely to affect the outside community.

States across the nation are seeking solutions to the dangers posed by coronavirus in prisons.

Some states like New York and New Jersey have elected to release many people from prisons in order to mitigate the risk to the elderly population.

In a statement on April 10, Governor Kate Brown announced her decision not to release anyone from prisons as a result of coronavirus.

Additionally, the early release program has also been suspended due to coronavirus protections leaving many nonviolent criminals to stay weeks and months longer than they had anticipated.

This program typically helps to release 580 inmates annually, usually at about 20% shorter than their original sentences. This has directly affected people incarcerated at the Columbia River Correctional Institution in Portland, the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, and the Powder River Correctional Facility in Baker City. Additionally the Governor has halted all visitation and barred non-essential staff.

As of May 14, there are 113 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among adults in custody (AICs) and 33 confirmed corrections staff cases across Oregon. 2,123 AICs are in quarantine and 107 in medical isolation. On May 14, the Portland Tribune reported the first incarcerated youth in Oregonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s juvenile correctional facilities tested positive for COVID-19; an employee at the facility also tested positive.

Oregon Reopens

illustration by Haley Riley

Coronavirus remains a risk to the public

by Vivian Veidt As states across the nation enter their first phases of reopening, the novel coronavirus persists as a threat to public health. Nationwide, as of May 23rd, 1,595,885 total cases of the coronavirus have been identified, with 96,002 deaths from the disease. The United States maintains the highest number of COVID-19 cases worldwide. Oregon has experienced a total of 3,888 cases and 147 deaths as of May 23. Meanwhile, Washington has recorded 19,265 cases and 1,050 deaths as of May 21.

In response to the economic impact of coronavirus, the CARES Act created the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF), valued at approximately $14.25 billion. The fund provides emergency relief to students and institutions, with $6 billion mandated to go directly to students through emergency financial aid grants. During a press conference on May 22, Interim President Stephen Percy announced that Portland State University has received approximately 4,800 applications for HEERF emergency financial aid grants and has dispersed approximately $3.6 million to students. Despite funding received through HEERF, Percy stated concern about budget cuts arising from a drop in state funding and declared that the university has been engaged in preliminary planning for an 8.5% reduction in state spending.

Concerns about state budget cuts are justified and the State of Oregon is preparing for a large budget shortfall. In a statement released on May 11, Governor Kate Brown described that “ear-

Nationwide, as of May 23, 1,595,885 total cases of the coronavirus have been identified, with 96,002 deaths from the disease.

ly discussions indicated this impact could be a reduction of $3 billion for the current budget period,” and “directed state agencies to prepare prioritized reduction plans equaling a 17 percent reduction for the upcoming fiscal year as a planning exercise to explore all options.”

In a statement made on May 20, Brown called upon the federal government to aid in the state’s expected budget shortfalls, stressing that “the budget gap created by this pandemic is too large to bridge without additional Congressional action.” Brown said “as a state, we took action to shutter our economy in order to save lives in the middle of a once-in-a-century crisis.

Now it’s time for Congress and the President to step up and provide once-in-a-century support for important state services, including schools, health care, and public safety.”

Despite some countries, including Iran and Japan, having experienced notable increases in COVID-19 cases after reopening, the United States has begun to reopen. Doctor Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) warned during a CNN interview “to be on the alert.”

In Oregon, all counties except Washington and Multnomah counties have been approved for Phase 1 of reopening. Washington and Multnomah counties, which have reported among the highest numbers of cases in Oregon, have not, as of May 23, applied to reopen.

The State of Oregon has announced its new statewide guidelines for counties remaining in lockdown and those entering Phase 1 of reopening. Non-emergency medical, dental, and

veterinary care providers are allowed to operate, provided they meet safety guidelines issued by the state. Local outdoor recreation activities, including many state parks, have been reopened.

Those counties remaining in lockdown will now be allowed to reopen summer school for “limited in-person, small group instruction” with some restrictions. “Local cultural, civic and faith gatherings” are now allowed for groups of up to 25 people so long as physical distancing can be performed. Limited child care will also be allowed, “with priority placements for children of health care workers, first responders, and frontline workers.” Stand-alone retail establishments will also be allowed to reopen, provided that they can accommodate state safety and physical distancing requirements. The baseline guidelines do not allow for dine-in service at restaurants, social gatherings over 10 people, or personal care services, including hair salons and gyms.

Counties that have entered Phase 1 of reopening may allow dine-in restaurant service, so long as tables are spaced at least six feet apart, employees wear face coverings, and all on-site consumption ends prior to 10 p.m. Personal care services, including salons, may reopen by appointment, with a requirement for pre-appointment health checks. Personal care services must also maintain a log of customers, maintain six feet of physical distance between clients, and provide face coverings for employees. Gyms may reopen, provided that they limit capacity to enforce physical distancing and meet sanitation guidelines. In Phase 1 counties, local gatherings may be conducted with up to 25 people, but travelling for gatherings remains prohibited.

Oregon has experienced a total of 3,888 cases and 147 deaths as of May 23.

PSU has received over 4,800 applications for HEERF emergency financial aid grants and has dispersed approximately $3.6 million to students.

NEWS

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The Debate Upon a Hill: Josh Cohen v.

Ronald “Big Ronny” Schmuck

by Van Vanderwall

On May 32nd, amidst great upheaval, wars and rumors of wars,1 and a plague that had beset all nations on the face of the earth, the candidates for the presidency of the United States of America came to that city set on a hill, 2 where they met within a grand auditorium to debate their political platforms. The hall was filled with a great multitude which no one could count, 3 so many thousands gathered together that they were stepping on one another,4 and upon the stage were three podia, one upon the left for the incumbent, one in the middle for the moderator, and one upon the right for the challenger. When the moderator raised his hand, a hush fell on that multitude and they beheld the entrance of the incumbent, the current President of the United States, as the moderator introduced him.

“Ronald ‘Big Ronny the Schmuck’ Schmuck is the current president, running with strong support from his own Publican Party as well as endorsements from the scribes, Pharisees, moneychangers, and lawyers. In a move without precedent, his campaign sought and secured the approbation and funding of foreign leaders of state: Pharaoh in Egypt; Nebuchad-

1 Matthew 24:6 2 Matthew 5:14

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SATIRE

nezzar the King of Babylon; Tiberius Caesar; Herod the Great, King of Judaea; and Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judaea. His strongest supporter has been the Czar, whom the Schmuck has designated as his running mate and, to use the incumbent’s own words, ‘chief of all the important bureaus.’ Prior to his entrée into politics five years ago, Schmuck managed several casinos, a private university, golf resorts, and hotels, bankrupting all of them. He was also the star of a reality show, Apprentice of Mammon, and has a popular recurring role on professional wrestling television specials. Please welcome President Big Ronny Schmuck.”

The Schmuck looked out at the cheering crowd, staring like a cold-blooded lizard.

“This truly is an election year unlike any in American history,” the moderator continued.

“Following threats against judges and athletes as well as every member of the opposition parties, there is only one other candidate this year, and he is running as an independent without the support of any party. Joshua Cohen was born in a stable in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to unwed immigrant parents. For the last few years he has been a self-employed itiner-

3 Revelation 7:9 4 Luke 12:1

ant preacher, unaffiliated with any organized church, and a radical political activist and social organizer. Because of fear of reprisal from the Schmuck, no major political figure or organization backed Cohen, who instead runs with a dozen endorsements from illiterate immigrant fishermen and carpenters, a former tax collector, some minorities on medical disability, and additional campaign support from his mother and some poor women alleged to be former prostitutes. Please welcome Joshua Cohen.”

Cohen, wearing a threadbare robe and worn sandals, entered. Disorderly people in the audience, wearing red hats with the mark of the Schmuck, leapt on the stage. They spit in his face, and buffeted him and smote him with the palms of their hands.5 Security guards subdued the attackers and escorted them offstage, even as they continued to shout and berate Cohen.

“What a loser this Cohen guy is, right?” the Schmuck asked. “Do Americans want a wimp like that, or do they want a winner? Do they want some work-shirking Jew, or do they want the biggest Schmuck and most devout Christian there is?” Those among the multitude

5 Matthew 26:67 6 Mark 6:4

wearing red hats, hats marking their submission to the Schmuck and his works, roared in approval.

The Schmuck twisted his face, stretching the ends of his mouth upward.

Cohen wiped the spittle from his face and spoke into the microphone at his podium: “A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.”6 The moderator gestured for silence.

“The issue foremost on Americans’ minds this election season is healthcare. Can each of you describe your position on healthcare reform?”

Cohen was leaning forward to speak when the Schmuck barked, “I go first! I always get to go first!” His opponent gestured for him to continue.

“I know a lot about health and doctoring, and lots of people are talking about how much I know about those things. I think, more than ever, it’s apparent how much I know about health, and most Americans—most patriots— would agree that I know a lot of things and everyone says so.” The Schmuck rocked back on his heels and screwed up the flaps of his face.

“If you please, Mr. Schmuck,” the moderator said, “answer the question concisely without resorting to recursive meanderings.”

The Schmuck jerked his head and derisively flicked out his tongue. “I didn’t go to an Ivy League school to use big, un-American words, but I’ll answer the question. People should not get sick—if people get sick, they can’t work, and that’s bad for the economy. We want our people to work, we want to make money. America is a business, not a charity case for bozos who want to get sick all the time.”

“How do you respond, Mr. Cohen?”

“They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick.7 Cure those who have need of healing.”8 And he expounded upon the pro bono medical work he had been performing for the uninsured, the impoverished, and the unfortunate, simultaneous with his preaching and activism. The people were astonished at his doctrine;9 then opened he their understanding.10 The Schmuck scoffed. “Healing a bunch of

7 Mark 2:17 8 Luke 9:11 9 Matthew 7:28 10 Luke 24:45

illustrations by Haley Riley

lazy layabouts who probably crossed the border illegally is not my idea of health for Americans.

Most of them, I don’t know how many, but I think we all know how many, are bad hombres and rapists and killers who are a danger to our women and our country. In my next term, after this election nonsense, I’ll see to it that this kind of subversive activity stops at once.”

“Let’s move on to the next point of debate,” the moderator said. “The other issue that concerns voters—” The Schmuck coughed at the word “voters.”

“—in this election is income inequality. Mr. Schmuck, would you like to talk about your views on this?”

“Please, call me The Schmuck—I’m one of a kind.” And it was true, for he was unlike other men, like unto nothing so much as a serpent that crawls on its belly and devours the harvest before its time. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as inequality in this country. If people spent less time complaining and more time working, they’d all be successful, instead of a bunch of losers, which is what they are. Anyone can start at the bottom and work his way up; just look at me: using all the businessman skills that I wrote about in How to Steal, I turned the gazillions I inherited from my father into millions.”

“Gazillion isn’t a number,” the moderator said, “and when used colloquially, it usually indicates a number larger than a billion.”

“Whatever. The bigger one, I meant the bigger one,” the Schmuck barked while shaking his head. “You college types are so fussy with

11 Luke 12:15 12 Matthew 6:19 13 Luke 18:22 14 Luke 11:4

your little words and your little definitions.

Whose opinion matters anyway: someone who uses big words or someone like me who’s a celebrity? I answered the question, now talk to that loser in a robe.”

He wagged his finger in Cohen’s direction.

Cohen stepped up to his microphone and spoke in a commanding voice. “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth.11 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.12 Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor․13 For we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.14 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?15 Ask, and it shall be given you.16 For every one that asketh receiveth.”17 The Schmuck scoffed. “That sounds like a bunch of communist bullshit from some shithole country nobody’s ever heard of, and that nobody wants to hear from, and that nobody should hear from. What this country needs is good, old fashioned Christianity, not a bleeding heart agenda. Where are we going to get the money to pay for that? A trillion here and there for a stock market infusion, five or six hundred billion for the military—the heroes, the men and women my campaign supports— sure; this liberal gobbledygook about forgiving debts and giving handouts to losers—I don’t buy it, not one bit.”

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves,”18 Cohen said. “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.19 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 20 They devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers.”21 “Very interesting response, Mr. Cohen,” said the moderator. “Our country’s military is currently involved in seven armed conflicts. What are your respective positions on the American military?”

“I support our military in everything,” The

15 Luke 11:11 16 Luke 11:9 17 Luke 11:10

THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

11

Schmuck said. “If a general or major or whoever asks me for something, I provide it because that’s what a president should do. I’m not a veteran, although I’d like to think that I heroically overcame my bone spurs the way our heroes in uniform triumph over our enemies every day.

So, you ask me what I think of the military, I’ll tell you: they’re great, they’re terrific, every one of them is terrific and tremendous, and we can’t wait to get this election over and give them more money to go win for America.” He stretched the ends of his mouth across his face and squinted. A sea of red hats surged, cheering and shouting, as the light in the auditorium caught the marks upon the hats.

Cohen raised his arms as if to embrace the entire crowd, even those in the red hats scorning and mocking him as he spoke. “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 22 Blessed are the peacemakers. All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”23 The Schmuck inhaled to begin a tirade, but the moderator raised his hand to stop him. The Schmuck stamped his foot and huffed.

The moderator looked at each candidate in turn. “Now the two of you will take turns summarizing your respective platforms in a brief phrase or sentence. Schmuck, you may begin.”

“That’s right; schmucks always come first.”

He leered at the crowd through the narrow slits in his face. “My phrase is this: a bigly wall, the bigliest wall in the history of big walls.”

“A mustard seed, which indeed is the least of all seeds.”24 “Bomb the shit out of them.”

“And as ye would have that men should do to you, do ye to them likewise.”25 “Alternative facts.”

“Forgive us our debts.”26 “Grab them by the pussy.”

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.”27 “Christian—we’re true Christians, not entitled socialist dirtbags like this guy,” the Schmuck said smugly as he held up his right hand to display the mark there. And those in the audience wearing red hats did likewise, for these marks were put upon the fronts of caps and upon the right hands of the people of this nation in a show of allegiance to the Schmuck that they might buy and sell with the money of blood in his market. 28 “He who hath ears to hear, let him hear,”29 Cohen said. He then upended the podium and rebuked them: “This is an evil generation.30 O generation of vipers, 31 this people draw nigh 18 Matthew 7:15 19 Matthew 23:24 20 Matthew 23:4 21 Mark 12:40 22 Matthew 5:7, substituted “Joshua” for “Jesus”and cut “Son of the most high God” 23 Matthew 26:52 24 Matthew 13:31–32 (paraphrased) 25 Luke 6:31 26 Matthew 6:12 27 Matthew 6:28 28 Revelation 13 (adapted), Matthew 27:6 29 Matthew 13:9 30 Luke 11:29

12

SATIRE

unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

They teach for doctrines the commandments of wicked men.”32 The Schmuck went red in the face and slithered in his suit, hissing through the orifice in his jaundiced face. As he did so, the lights in the auditorium flickered and went out; there was darkness over the multitude, darkness that could be felt. 33 Without amplification or lighting, the Schmuck screamed into the darkness at the multitude, using much profanity. “What have I to do with thee, Joshua? I adjure thee. 34 I will divide this house and this nation, which shall not stand. My name is Legion: for we are many.”35 A bitterly cold wind seemed to move through the auditorium and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth36 as the Schmuck continued howling in the darkness.

Cohen raised his voice above the cacophony, as one crying in the wilderness.37 “Get thee behind me, Schmuck; thou art an offence unto me, thou unclean spirit, for thou savourest the things that be of wicked men.38 For by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”39 The people which stood in darkness saw great light40 as the power came back on in the auditorium. “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you?41 How is it that ye do not understand?42 Having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember?43 Judge not, that ye be not judged.44 Love your enemies.45 Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”46

31 Matthew 12:34 32 Matthew 15:8 33 Exodus 10:21 adapted 34 Mark 5:7 35 Mark 5:9 36 Matthew 7:12 37 Mark 1:3 38 Matthew 16:23 (adapted), Mark 5:8 39 Matthew 12:37 40 Matthew 4:16 adapted “stood” for “sat” 41 Mark 9:19 42 Mark 8:21 43 Mark 8:18 44 Matthew 7:1

But the crowd knew him not, and he marveled at their unbelief.47 The moderator cleared his throat. “Thank you, gentlemen. This was quite a debate, and now it’s time to close out the evening.”

Cohen locked eyes with the Schmuck and spoke to him: “Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity48 for ye have made the White House into a den of thieves.”49 The Schmuck looked away and mugged for the crowd with his loose, slimy face; he raised his prehensile appendages and made signs to the crowd. “Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand,”50 Cohen said to himself as he watched the Schmuck raise his right forelimb in salute, a salute that those bearing the mark returned as they chanted menacingly in foreign tongues. And the Schmuck, the vile one who stood upon the left side of the stage, walked the left-hand path off the stage. And Cohen, who had stood upon the right-hand side of the stage, walked the righthand path as those in the audience wearing red caps with the mark of the Schmuck did mock him as he went.

And so it was that Joshua Cohen, radical preacher and activist, confronted the Schmuck, the ruler in those days of iniquity, and spoke parables unto him and unto the multitude.

Yet it was not known until the day of election whether the people of that nation heeded the wisdom of Cohen or bowed before the wickedness of the Schmuck.

45 Matthew 5:44 46 Mark 12:31 47 Mark 6:6 48 Luke 13:27 49 Luke 19:46 (adapted “the White House” for the pronoun “it”) 50 Mark 14:42

Remarks From the Author on “Josh Cohen” Using irony with sincerity

by Van Vanderwall

illustration by Josh Gates

“Joshua Cohen” is a satire, which is itself a form that relies on irony. (As an aside, the colloquial use of “ironic” to denote something merely interesting or coincidental is wrong. Thus the Alanis Morissette song “Isn’t It Ironic?” lists events that are not ironic, but the song is itself ironic insofar as it repeatedly fails to correctly identify irony.)

In our time, irony is the default position, the tone of first resort; constant ironic indifference as the standard mode of engagement with the world allows people to jeer without becoming vulnerable or susceptible to criticism—it’s only a joke.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with irony, but because it is by nature a destructive rather than constructive device, if it is the prevailing mode of engagement, then the discourse becomes skewed and imbalanced. The perpetual competition to demonstrate superiority and detachment never leads anywhere, never builds anything.

This is not a new observation. David Foster Wallace diagnosed the problem in an essay called "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction," originally published in 1993. With the integration of euphemistic politics and extremist views into the mainstream over the last five years, the problem has become more pronounced. What Wallace recognized was what we might think of as hipster-grade irony: we’re cool and we do uncool things to show how uncool those things are and how cool we are by comparison. Wallace himself, despite calls in the piece for earnestness, never quite broke from this brand of irony. What now plagues our society is dangerous euphemism, often not irony at all, but only called that to cloak its real function. Consider, among many possible examples, that Trump defended his claim that Obama had wiretapped him by claiming that the statement was ironic, that it was in fact a kind of sarcastic joke. Consider also West Virginia politician Eric Porterfield, who, when asked in an interview how he would react if his children came out as gay, said he would “see if they can swim;” when pressed to elaborate, he asserted that he meant engaging in outdoor activities. In these

cases, and the many others so sadly typical of our day, perfidious speakers disingenuously claim that baseless accusations and thinly veiled threats are either “ironic” or meant only in a narrow sense that is not congruent with the undercurrent of meaning.

The use of irony to obfuscate the intended meaning allows the speaker to disavow responsibility for his or her words. When this is the norm, as it currently is, the result is that words become meaningless and people can behave repugnantly with impunity. Rather than being a corrective to balance stilted old values, irony is now a posture from which people use language to attack one another without taking responsibility.

Despite these problems, I chose to write a piece of satire because the form may yet be redeemed.

A narrative satire can entertain and educate by using selective exaggeration to illuminate truth.

This is precisely what I hope “Josh Cohen” does.

There the irony serves to illustrate a point and take a stand against the moral bankruptcy of the president. The piece is not fake news because it is clearly a fabulist view of reality meant to expose falsehood. It is not a lazy, fashionable, hip irony

because it takes a clear and simple moral stand (the Republican party is so far from being Christian that Jesus Christ himself would be the target of their ridicule and scorn). This in turn exposes the piece to criticism, which makes it part of an ongoing debate rather than a threat of violence, a personal attack, or anything fostering anti-intellectual incivility over investigation.

I hope that this piece amply demonstrates how the dominant party occupies a moral position that has no relation to the radical teachings of Jesus Christ in the Gospels; like the hypocrites in those texts, they use scripture as a prop to confer the appearance of rectitude, but never bother to abide by the ethical codes therein. It seems unlikely that Josh Cohen, an ethnic minority and independent candidate with a radical political agenda, or anyone much like him will be sworn in as president in January. Nonetheless, please join me in doing the right thing by repudiating unctuous speech— ours, our acquaintances’, and our politicians’—and being genuine, even when being ironic.

OPINION

13

Kill the Death Penalty The death penalty is cruel and unusual

by Emma CrowE

illustrations by Kami Gould

The death penalty is an inhumane form of punishment, which wreaks havoc on the lives of inmates, their families, and the surrounding communities.

It should be abolished for the mental and physical suffering it has caused.

The death penalty is currently practiced in 28 states, in addition to the United States government and the U.S. military. There are multiple forms of execution being used, but lethal injection is the primary method. In 2019, 22 inmates from death row were executed, 91% by lethal injection and 9% by electrocution.

There are many instances in which inmates on death row have been exonerated, sometimes years after their initial conviction. With the evidence of past mistakes on the behalf of the justice department, there is reasonable doubt regarding the true guilt (and/or level of violence of the crime involved) of many inmates sentenced to death row. Between the years 2000–2019, 84 inmates on death row were exonerated. The years between their convictions and exonerations ranged from 3–43 years. Up to 43 years on death row for a

" The death penalty is

crime they didn’t commit, and then forced to live with that label for the rest of their lives. Those 84 inmates were only the ones who were able to prove their innocence and get a lawyer to file paperwork on their behalf. It is hard to tell just how many people have been wrongly convicted and have spent years on death row or have died at the hands of the justice system.

I believe everyone deserves the right to health, happiness, and, as the constitution puts it in the Eighth Amendment, freedom from cruel and unusual punishments. Nothing about the death penalty as a form of punishment screams compassion or common decency, and therefore is a direct violation of the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. There are many moving parts that can go awry during an execution. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, about 3% of executions from 1890–2010 were mishandled. A botched execution means that the inmate suffers for a longer period of time, at a greater level of pain, and all with a captive audience in attendance.

My opposition is about more than the experiences of the inmates on death row. I believe that the death penalty is an immoral practice. The justice system takes a person they believe to have committed a crime and sends them to trial. The accused is then judged by a jury of their peers, but the sentence can be overturned by a judge in a “judicial override.” In previous cases—such as the sentencing of Walter McMillian in 1988—juries have voted to sentence the accused to life in prison, only to have the judge overturn their decision and sentence the accused to death row instead.

It is more common for people who have been accused of murder to receive the death penalty than people who have been accused of other crimes. The death penalty is issued to convicted murderers as “justice,” but I believe that sounds more like vengence. It should not be up to humans to decide who lives, who dies, and why. That makes one no better than the murderer they are seeking justice and closure from. The death penalty is unconstitutional, and should be abolished in favor of human life.

" According to

currently practiced in 28

the Death Penalty

states, in addition to the

Information Center,

United States government

about 3% of executions

and the U.S. military. "

from 1890–2010 were mishandled."

14

OPINION

Grateful PowerPoint Grad PSUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision to cancel in-person ceremonies was the right one

by Jake Johnson On June 14th, I will be graduating—virtually.

By that I mean I am having a virtual graduation ceremony from my living room to commemorate my very real graduation from Portland State University. Is this the beautiful and triumphant finish to our academic careers we all hoped for? Hell no. However, an immediate virtual commencement at the end of the school year is the best way for all of us to be able to acknowledge the hard work and sacrifices we’ve made and to celebrate our immense achievements together.

When PSU announced that commencement would be virtual on the 26th of March it seemed like an extra safe move. But the backlash by students was swift and ferocious.

Comments and petitions decried the move as robbing students of their rightfully earned moment. Postpone graduation to fall, they say. Let 2020 walk with 2021, they say. This is unfair, they say. But the safety of the fall—or even 2021 for that matter—is up for debate at this point.

There are many better things to direct your anger toward: attempts to privatize the USPS; the staggering number of unnecessary COVID-19 deaths in the United States due to the arrogant dismissal of science by the ignorant, arrogant blowhards currently running our country; 17% of the Amazon Rainforest 16

OPINION

is gone and in 2016 30% of coral in the Great Barrier Reef died; et cetera ad infinitum.

Be furious. Be mad. Be sad. Let it out. Take it out on the person most responsible for us not having the possibility of reopening like South Korea: Donald Trump. Vote for the Democrat in November and get him out.

Did you fire the Pandemic Response Team?

No, you did not. If they hadn’t been fired perhaps we wouldn’t be entering into an insanely uncertain job market. Demand that your student debt be erased. Are you unsure how you can possibly afford to survive after college? Demand the absurd wealth of Bezos and friends be redistributed; that our country increase taxes on the ultra-rich and fairly compensate the working classes. Use your anger and energy to demand that the U.S. be transformed, immediately, into a just and equitable country that is not only concerned about, but actively prioritizes, the health and financial stability of every single person in our country.

At the start of March, flights were getting really cheap. My 95-year-old grandma told me that it didn’t matter how cheap the flights were.

“Don’t come,” she said. “I’m 95. You could literally kill me, honey.”

Unfortunately, we can’t see the end of the COVID-19 crisis. It would be absolutely irresponsible to hold in-person commencement ceremonies. I don’t want our parents and grandparents to have to think that if they love

and support us they’ll be there for us, even if it means risking their lives or the lives of one of our immunocompromised students or siblings.

COVID-19 isn’t going away any time soon. If anything, it will likely get much worse.

Graduation is meant to be celebrated with friends and family who have supported us along this journey, correct? To quote The Head and The Heart, “My family lives in a different state.” Fortunately, my family could drive here, but what about the families who would have to fly? That mass movement and mass gathering would likely mean an uptick in cases and deaths—regardless if it happens now or later.

Additionally, it is likely that postponement to a different date would coincide with dates chosen by other universities and colleges: lots of people moving around the country and globe at the same time. It’s not just our school, it’s schools around the country. We are setting a good example and making a tiny sacrifice in exchange for the health of ourselves and those we love.

We are doing our part to give a slight reprieve to healthcare workers fighting the spread and wrath of COVID-19 while honoring those who have died from it. I applaud PSU for making this difficult choice; and for making it early, killing our hopes while we still have time to recover from the blow.

Graduation is a climax after the momentum of effort we’ve put in over all these years to make it to this point. It is the brief moment

of relief after years of stress, where, just for a second, we can breathe and bask in the glorious achievements of our peers—and ourselves (it’s our day we get to be selfish!)—before we part ways and head off into the next phases of our lives. Part of the reason why that moment is so big is because it’s finally here after years of thinking it might never arrive, and for one last second we are all on the same page, it is the last moment of college before we head off into the “real world.” Dressing up funny and taking pictures with our families is a side benefit. It’s because that is the first real moment that students and those who support them get to acknowledge their accomplishments. When that moment comes, if we don’t celebrate it, it will be gone.

Are we just going to go around telling people not to get excited for us yet? When our parents and friends ask if we graduated are we just going to tell them to shut their dirty traps? Are we going to wait to get our degrees or will we have them with us in the meantime? What about the number of out-of-state and international students who might not have the means to get back to Portland later?

What makes graduation special is the culmination of all of it, in a room where thousands of other people are likewise excited, nervous, relieved, and stoked beyond belief to have made it to that pivotal, celebratory, and transitional moment in their lives.

Postponement ignores what graduation is:

an important experience because of the specific moment it happens within. It is the instant immediately after we’ve all survived the rigors of academia, the precise moment before students move out of dorms, and the exact second when we’re all standing on the edge of the diving board debating to ourselves and each other whether we’re going to perform miracle-necessitating tricks or just casually allow ourselves to glide into the job market.

When we postpone the ceremony we move past the very moment that makes it so special and important to begin with. No matter what we try, we cannot recapture it. Moments are like fireflies: if you try to keep them in a jar for later they will probably die.

I’m proud to partake in this highly unusual ceremony. I didn’t take Uber up on their offer for a free degree from Arizona State University’s online programs for a reason; I wanted the community, in-person experience, and quality education PSU offered. I’m proud to help save lives by celebrating in my living room. I’m proud that at 33, a literal decade since my departure from community college, I will have a degree—something I hadn’t thought possible from 2004 to 2015. My degree still represents the hard work I’ve put in over the past four years to finish my Junior and Senior years of college. I’m proud I’ve made it here; and I’m proud we’ve all made it here together.

For the past five years I’ve been looking forward to this moment. I’ve dreamt about

the electric atmosphere. The banality and anonymity of a terrifyingly long graduation day, sitting in a chair for too many hours, while I watch students I’ve never seen before be celebrated. For the first time since my high school graduation, it was finally going to be me in that robe and cap. All of the absurdly difficult, yet at times unbelievably fulfilling, work and just one, two, 100 all-nighters later I would be the one who crosses the stage and holds my empty diploma sleeve in the air as proof that I, too, am capable of graduating from college. I, too, would have a degree that might not make me a ton of money but that has taught me important skills and that I am unbelievably proud of.

Beaming at the cameras. Picking my parents out of the crowd as they pick me out of the crowd and we wave. Finally, that was going to be me!

But that’s not how it’s going to happen. I’m going to put on my nice black jeans and fancy shoes. I’m going to put on my robe and decorated hat. I’m going to play fun music and drink some Coca-Cola and munch on fruit snacks and celery sticks. I’m going to set up my virtual commencement. I’m going to get on video conference calls with my family and friends who are also graduating. I’m gonna cheer for every person and we’re all gonna fuckin’ party over the internet, together.

illustrations by Kami Gould

THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

17

Virtual Commencement Blues Seniors should be able to determine what their commencement looks like

by McKinzie Smith

illustrations by May Walker

I’m not sure what the right answer is to the question of graduation, but I do know what isn’t: Virtual commencement.

Graduating seniors have had to temper their expectations on various things many of us were looking forward to: No final term with our peers, no in-person goodbyes, no viable job market for many majors. Grad and honors students working on research theses have had to alter their original ideas to work around the crisis, and those involved in Spring sports won’t get to finish out with their team. On top of this, graduation appears to be in flux. Although University Communications reached out on March 26 that Portland State University will transition to virtual commencement ceremonies at all schools and colleges in June, many students have started petitions against it and been generally vocal about their disdain for the idea. Since then, ASPSU president Kyle Leslie-Christy has mentioned in their weekly newsletter that “the conversation seems to have refocused around giving students options.” Leslie-Christy advocated for the option of a virtual graduation as well as smaller, likely major- or school of study-based, in-person ceremonies at a later date in either the Viking Pavilion or the Park Blocks.

There is hope for development. University of Oregon announced on April 24 that they would hold a combined graduation next year for 2020 and 2021 grads, as well as hold their own virtual commencement in June. U of O is a similarly-sized campus, and they don’t even have access to the Moda Center. There’s no reason why PSU 18

OPINION

couldn’t run with the same plan or, at least, express the same consideration for students’ desires.

Some might not see the issue with a virtual commencement, but it’s hard to deny that virtual commencement paints a rather downer picture: Sitting at your kitchen table, a single sad balloon behind you, no cap and gown, staring at your screen. Maybe your parents are there, maybe not. Maybe it’s just a roommate or your partner.

Maybe there’s no one at all. No one hands you a diploma or shakes your hand. Instead, there’s a confusing Zoom stream with hundreds of people logged on. The stream glitches when some names are announced. At the end, you log off and can’t do anything to celebrate except maybe have a glass of wine or a Fred Meyer bakery cake. Maybe. There’s no way of knowing what it will look like except what we can conjure in our minds. Because it’s so different from what we were looking forward to, the image skews negative.

Clearly, students are upset about this. I was able to obtain statements from five students who started online petitions to postpone PSU’s graduation. Many, like soon-to-be-grads Annie Bates, Noemi Martinez-Gonzalez, and Marena Riggan see graduation as the symbol of their success. “To me, graduation means that all my years of hard work has paid off and I'm being recognized for it,” says Bates. For Martinez-Gonzalez, that moment of walking across the stage would be significant for more than just herself. “As an immigrant and first-generation student, I would be the first person in my family to walk across a commencement stage,” she told us. “It is of utmost importance

to share such an accomplishment with the same family and friends who have supported me along the way.” Riggan faced hardship to get this degree, being “the only child in [her] family to not receive support, financial or otherwise,” and had to fund her way to her degree. “Graduation has been long-anticipated in my mind, because even though my family was not on the guest list, I still wanted to invite the people who deserved to be there.”

Graduation matters; it’s not fair to sweep it under the rug and pretend that students won’t feel strongly one way or the other about the issue. PSU choosing to ignore cries for a postponement has resulted in frustration. Seniors Elana Goldman and Kirk Jungles brought up this very point in their statements to me. According to Goldman, “virtual commencement is incredibly disappointing and wasn’t decided with the students in mind.”

Jungles agreed, saying with “absolute certainty” that virtual commencement “could not possibly offer the same value” as a postponement. Goldman’s parting comment hit the nail on the head: “This is a difficult time for everyone—however, with strong community [participation] we could come to a solution we all agree on.” Right now, seniors don’t feel heard or represented. It’s up to PSU to listen and react in kind.

In relation to other issues during the pandemic, this is a small matter. When there are many students whose studies have been entirely disrupted, or students who may not know where their next paycheck is coming from, graduation isn’t at the forefront of PSU’s concerns. However, it is some-

thing that seniors have been looking forward to for a long time. I don’t think it’s wrong to want something better than a virtual graduation, even if such a thing is futile.

While there are larger, life-saving concerns, isn’t it understandable that students might be upset that life isn’t turning out like we thought it would?

More than anything, the backlash against virtual commencement is a sign of even larger frustrations. That’s okay. People will tell you that being disappointed about things you’ve looked forward to is to ignore the bigger issues. While there are larger, life-saving concerns, isn’t it understandable that students might be upset that life isn’t turning out like we thought it would?

We can make graduation whatever we want it

to be. As long as people are kept safe, there are no rules. Perhaps virtual commencement seems like the best option to you. That’s great! I’m glad you’re finding something to look forward to. But for those who don’t like that option, there should be something else to be excited for. As we all know, there’s so little of that these days.

Personally, I was recently sent an email from the honors college asking what sort of virtual ceremony I would like. One of the options available was to send in a video of myself standing up from a chair, just like in real graduation, to be broadcast during the ceremony. It was depressing to think about, and I’m someone who doesn’t even care much whether I have a graduation or not. Virtual commencement is, at its very core, disappointing and sad. Imagine how sad it is for students who have been looking forward to that ceremony!

For this reason, I endorse ASPSU’s idea to have multiple options available to students. I don’t think virtual commencement should be the only option, even if I don’t think it should be cancelled either. Instead, virtual commencement should be opted into if you believe it’s the best option. Others should still be able to hold smaller ceremonies later on and, I believe, a full ceremony either next year or in the fall should be an option as well.

Seniors worked hard to get where they are and although a Moda ceremony won’t be happening this year, we should be able to choose how we get to celebrate.

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P O ST P O N E , D O N ’ T C A NC E L Why the class of 2020 deserves a real graduation ceremony

by Claire Golden

illustrations by May Walker

Like many of my fellow graduating seniors, I was distressed when I received the email from PSU announcing that graduation would be virtual this year. Don’t get me wrong: I knew we wouldn’t be having our graduation ceremony in June at the MODA Center. It would be irresponsible to bring so many people together during a pandemic, when it’s more important than ever to be following the CDC’s social distancing guidelines.

I’m not encouraging PSU to break those rules.

However, I am insisting that PSU listen to its students and postpone the 2020 Commencement Ceremony rather than holding a virtual ceremony.

These four (or five, six, or thirty-five) years haven’t been easy. Everybody has faced their own struggles on their way to earning their degree. PSU is known to have unconventional students, whether they be working students, parents going back to school, or commuters. Everybody has their own story and everybody has overcome their own battles. I can only speak from my own experience, so that’s what I’m going to do: share my story with you in the hopes that it will encourage PSU to do the right thing and give the class of 2020 a real graduation ceremony.

PSU was painfully unhelpful during my health problems in my junior year. They refused to accomodate me in the ways that I needed to succeed. Doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, but I was having excruciating stomach pains that left me unable to keep food down. I spent most evenings curled up on the bath20

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room floor just wanting the pain to go away. Because I couldn’t eat, I lost twenty pounds. Nobody could figure out what was wrong. I had radioactive medication injected through an IV to see if it was my gallbladder, then an upper endoscopy to see if there was something wrong with my stomach.

During this process, I continued to take a full course load because I was determined to get my degree. I didn’t want my GPA to suffer because I was missing classes, so I registered with the Disability Resource Center to ask for flexible attendance and was shocked to discover that this was not an option. I wasn’t missing class in favor of my own amusement—

I was asking for leniency because I could not walk from my bathroom to my bedroom, let alone take the bus downtown.

But the DRC offered absolutely no help or sympathy. Luckily, my professors stepped up and helped, sending me classwork at home and understanding when I missed class. I maintained my GPA and a full course load, no thanks to PSU admin. Getting to graduation has been a long, uphill battle. PSU didn’t let me go virtual when I was too sick to get out of my bed, showing that they don’t truly care about their students’ well-being.

Why do they get to go virtual for our graduation just because it’s convenient for them?

The number of petitions online demanding that PSU reschedule the ceremony shows that hundreds of other students feel the same way. A petition on Change.org titled “POSTPONE [sic] the Portland State University spring 2020 graduation” has over 1,100 signatures in the month it’s been active. This petition states that students “will not stand with the fact that PSU has no intention of rescheduling [their] graduation, with no clear input from graduating students themselves or faculty. They have instead made it clear that this decision would be made for [students], not with [students].” It calls for PSU to work with the student body to postpone the ceremony.

The announcement of virtual graduation garnered an overwhelmingly negative response on PSU’s Facebook page. In the comments section, graduating seniors call this

decision a “slap in the face” and say that PSU is not listening to its students. In contrast, Southern Oregon University is postponing commencement.

In response to the unhappy comments on the virtual graduation announcement, PSU is replying with a canned response stating that they will “continue to pass along comments to...campus leadership. You may also visit https://www.pdx.edu/ commencement and fill out the feedback form.”

Students are understandably frustrated by this dismissive response and the fact that campus leadership has demonstrated an unwillingness to listen to their students.

PSU states on their Commencement Ceremony Information page that they “are not able to postpone commencement mainly because it is not possible to know how long coronavirus restrictions will last, which puts any future bookings

of large venues in doubt.” But this is like saying that since the future is uncertain, there’s no point in trying. Our graduating class deserves better.

Surely facilities exist that could house a ceremony, like the newly renovated Viking Pavilion or even the Park Blocks themselves. Smaller ceremonies could be held for each individual college rather than having six big ones like normal. It’s true that it will be logistically challenging to find a place to hold commencement, but between all the powers that be and the combined knowledge of the student body, I’m confident that a solution exists. If nothing else, the 2020 class could walk with the 2021 class next June. Any of these options would be preferable to sitting in front of our screens watching a glorified PowerPoint presentation and hearing our names read. To add insult to injury, PSU includes links on their Virtual Commence-

ment Page to pictures of past graduation events, as if to show everyone what they will be missing.

It’s true that we, as the graduating class of 2020, are angry about this decision. But more than that, we are sad. Sad because after all this work, our accomplishment will not be recognized. Sad because our friends and family will not be able to celebrate with us. Most of all, sad because PSU has shown, yet again, that they only care about their students when it’s convenient for them.

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Neoliberalism Is the Disease How the ideology behind Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economy has failed the most vulnerable

by Nick Gatlin illustrations by Ciaran Dillon 22

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“Neoliberalism” is a notoriously slippery turn of phrase, one that has been twisted this way and that by so many different groups with so many different agendas as to become almost meaningless. Let’s begin by defining what the word “neoliberalism” means in the context of this essay. ...In particular, neoliberalism is often characterized in terms of its belief in sustained economic growth as the means to achieve human progress, its confidence in free markets as the most-efficient allocation of resources, its emphasis on minimal state intervention in economic and social affairs, and its commitment to the freedom of trade and capital.

— Encyclopedia Britannica In his book, Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics, Political Science and Africana Studies professor Lester Spence defines neoliberalism as “the general idea that society works best when the people and the institutions within it work...according to market principles.” He criticizes the rise of “human capital,” the idea that each person must think of themselves in entrepreneurial terms. He distills this theory to one simple phrase: “I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man.” In short, neoliberalism is an ideology which favors a reduction of the state and an expansion of the market into every aspect of life; which believes free-market capitalism produces the most efficient allocation of resources, and believes public spending inherently restrains growth and innovation.

It’s killing America.

As I’ve written before, the American social safety net is catastrophically broken, passing most of the burden off of the state and onto individuals. The coronavirus pandemic has revealed just how broken the system is. Recognizing the problem, however, will do little good if we don’t recognize the ideology behind it. The slow but deliberate retrenchment of New Deal policies in the past half-century has been driven by neoliberalism. Activist Naomi Klein, in her book This Changes Everything, wrote that “the three policy pillars of the neoliberal age” are “privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending…”

Neoliberalism is often associated with the free-market policies of Ronald Reagan and U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, but it has become a mainstream ideology today, embraced by members of both parties in the United States. Its influence pervades every aspect of American life. The coronavirus pandemic, a once-in-a-lifetime crisis, is revealing the cracks in what was already a fundamentally flawed system.

Under neoliberalism, there is no collective good, only individual benefit. Consider Margaret Thatcher’s quote, “...there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.” This sentiment explains so much about contemporary American society. The neoliberal myth of “rugged individualism” at the expense of collective action has seeped into every facet of our lives. We

don’t structure our society to look out for the most vulnerable. We barely even give them the time of day. Instead, the credo of contemporary society seems to be, “F*ck you, I got mine.”

In this system, the free market dictates all aspects of life, not just the economic sphere.

The government has little to no role to play in ordinary people’s lives in a neoliberal society.

Before the neoliberal age, the quintessential defense of collective action came from FDR’s second inaugural address: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” Compare this to Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address, where he stated “government is the problem,” or Bill Clinton’s famous 1996 declaration that “the era of big government is over.”

Since the rise of neoliberal ideology, government is no longer seen as a force for good; it has become a bogeyman that tramples freedom and breeds inefficiency. It’s no surprise, then, that in the midst of the greatest collective action problem since World War II, the U.S. gov-

ernment is failing miserably. Some states are threatening to cut off unemployment benefits if workers are afraid to show up. Only about 6 million tests have been carried out in a population of over 300 million. 35 million Americans could lose their health insurance due to the pandemic. This is not the work of a well-functioning government.

To successfully respond to a global pandemic, we need a global, coordinated response. Everyone must stay home as much as possible to stop the spread. That requires sacrifice on the part of everyone, especially the most vulnerable who already live in marginalized communities. The issue with our response can be summed up like this: if you don’t make it economically possible for people to stay home, they won’t. Numerous stay-at-home protests have been organized in recent weeks, and though they do not represent a majority of the public, we should pay attention to them. Philip Campbell, one protester in Michigan, told The New York Times, “This was very much about working people and our livelihoods and not wanting to be bankrupt and go

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into a depression.” He guessed one-third of the people he knew were unable to pay for groceries or rent because of the economic shutdown.

Obviously, we must shut down public life to slow the spread of the virus. But the choice cannot be between economic devastation and widespread death. Other countries have found ways to help their citizens while containing the outbreak. According to The New York Times, Denmark will cover 75–90% of employers’ payroll if they do not lay off their employees; the Netherlands will also pay up to 90% of wages, with extra for restaurants. The U.K. will subsidize 80% of the wages of anyone seeking unemployment benefits, according to CNN. Canada will pay each of its citizens $2,000 a month, for four months. What do American workers get?

A one-time check for $1,200, which is phased gradually out for incomes rising above $75,000.

Keep in mind Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is about two-thirds that of the United States. This is insulting.

The disparity between the U.S. and nearly every other developed nation seems ridiculous.

It makes more sense, however, when you look at it through the lens of neoliberalism. Every worker (or rather, consumer) is an individual responsible for their own wellbeing. After all, “there’s no such thing as society.” The government has no place interfering in the workings of the market.

Why else would U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham say unemployment checks were “incentivizing workers to leave the workforce,” even when the government was actively encouraging people to stay home? Why would the president be so adamant about getting people “back to work?” Why would the Democratic Party, supposedly the party of “regular people,” means24

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test a lifesaving stimulus check?

The answer is simple: if you can’t work, you are worthless. That’s the message neoliberalism sends. It’s why healthcare in the U.S. is tied to employment, whereas in every other developed country it is a guaranteed right. It’s why the government is so hesitant to “reward” people for not working. It’s why rent and mortgage payments are not frozen. It’s why basic necessities like food, housing, and healthcare are considered commodities, not fundamental rights. It’s why Bill Clinton signed the famous “Welfare to Work” reform bill in 1996, worried that being “soft on unemployment” would sink his reelection. It’s why the Affordable Care Act created “healthcare exchanges”—proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation—rather than guarantee healthcare as a basic right. If you can’t work, you’re worthless.

Never forget: the federal government could solve these problems by paying every American a universal basic income that would cover every necessity. The government could guarantee every American healthcare, and ensure no one would go bankrupt due to the coronavirus or any other disease. The government could ensure that every person could afford to stay home during a global pandemic. Every day they don’t is a policy decision.

Neoliberalism is a death cult. There’s simply no other way to put it. People are dying because the government has framed the issue as a choice between economic depression and mass death.

The Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick recently argued to reopen his state’s economy, saying on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that there are “more important things than living.”

Conservatives have begun to literally discuss sacrificing older people’s lives for the sake of the

stock market.

Don’t forget that this way of thinking has been hurting people long before the pandemic. Farmers are throwing out mass amounts of food while food banks are forced to ration and grocery stores struggle to keep up supply. Before the pandemic, an estimated 30–40% of the U.S. food supply went to waste every year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world, yet we cannot even adequately provide for our citizens. According to the Census Bureau, 11.8% of Americans—38.1 million people— fell below the poverty line in 2018, including 16.2% of children under 18. According to the Pew Research Center, the highest-earning 20% of American families made over 52% of all new income in 2018. Comparing the U.S. with other countries is even more depressing. The United Kingdom has had a national health service since 1948. In 2017, their healthcare spending per capita was $4,246. The U.S. spent $10,224.

Neoliberalism is not working for the vast majority of people. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is quickly disappearing. Millennials have now lived through two once-in-a-lifetime financial crises, and they’re drowning in 1.5 trillion dollars of student debt.

The two mainstream politicians who have recognized the problems with neoliberalism are Bernie Sanders and, funnily enough, Donald Trump. Obviously the President’s campaign was motivated in large part by bigotry and racial prejudice. But as his success in the Rust Belt reveals, his campaign leaned into issues of trade and outsourced jobs, recognizing that the post-World War II free-trade world has decimated the once-great manufacturing capitals of the United States. He pledged to “bring manufacturing back,” impose tariffs on foreign goods, and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

infographic by Jake Johnson

COVID-19 deaths

Unemployment Filings During COVID-19*

DOW Jones Industrial Average

100,000 75,000

30,000

50 million

6%

28,000

40 million

5%

26,000

50,000 25,000

30 million 20 million

22,000

18,000

4% 3%

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Feb Feb Feb Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Apr Apr Apr Apr May May May 10 18 24 2 9 16 23 30 6 13 20 27 4 11 18

0

2% 1% 0%

*Includes Pandemic * estimated based On total cases/deaths Unemployment Assistance

Of course, the President is not a big-government Keynesian. He still wants to shrink the government, privatize and cut the bureaucracy, cut taxes on business and the rich, etc., etc. He is a conservative through and through. But the danger in his rhetoric is precisely in the parts where he breaks from conservative orthodoxy.

Trump got a shocking amount of support from union households in 2016. A federal employee union endorsed Trump the same year. When organized labor feels burned by free-trade Democrats that (they believe) are intent on outsourcing their jobs across the ocean, what do they do? Who do they vote for?

This is the danger in neoliberalism. Liberals have pounded on the free-market drum for so long that there is no mainstream party that endorses pro-government policies, much less European-style social democracy. Even Hillary Clinton wanted to lower Medicare eligibility to age 55 in 2016; Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee, only wants to lower it to 60. This is meant to pass for “pro-government” policy.

If the Democratic Party can’t get its act together, and declare loudly and forcefully that the government should work for the people, not business and billionaires, right-wing populists will fill that void. If Democrats will not support universal healthcare, labor unions, and fair trade agreements, right-wing populists will fill that void. Bernie Sanders has identified many of the problems that Trump voters care about: a government that doesn’t care about them, an economy that is crushing them, and a country that seems to be leaving them behind.

The Democratic Party is no longer the party of FDR, and it hasn’t been for quite some time. The question now is whether they will go back to their roots, or continue the way they’ve been going. If they choose to remain the party of NAFTA and welfare reform, they will cede the mantle of “populism” to right-wing demagogues. Neoliberalism only works for the haves; it’s time for Democrats to start working for the have-nots.

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No Time to Change The name’s Bond. James Bond.

by M. Saqif Maqsud There are certain bearings in this world of ours, which when tampered with, upset a (fictional) balance. It would be highly unusual to see the sun rising in the west and setting in the east or rain falling upward instead of pouring down. It would by all means, be magical, but it wouldn’t be fitting. It may feel fictional, but to the degree where it loses its original and natural beauty. Interestingly, Ian Fleming’s iconic character James Bond has come under fire for upsetting that all-important balance.

The character of Bond was subject to an internet storm of debate and disagreement—battles about race, gender, identity, and countless other concerns. The latest movie, No Time to Die, spurred mixed reactions from the general public when it was announced that Daniel Craig would be playing Bond again. The film was supposed to be released on April 3, but has now been pushed back to November 2020. What is fascinating about this uproar is that everyone’s reaction appears to target the fictional spy. A significant portion of the public wanted to see a more diverse James Bond. It is however, important to keep in mind that James Bond has become as old as time. To tamper with the character would be like mixing Red Bull with a finely aged wine.

It is high time we stop painting Fleming’s iconic secret agent with the brushes of today’s modern ideals.

According to an article in The Guardian, the actress Lashana Lynch has been chosen as the next 007. Social media platforms were ablaze with praises and appreciation. Tweets like, “Wow. Lashana Lynch is the next 007. She’s not 26

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playing Bond, but will take over the code name.

Brava, Phoebe Waller-Bridge for ushering in a new era where WoC can lead a spy series, like Sandra Oh in #KillingEve,” became popular.

This is not the way one promotes equality and diversity. It is decisions like these that turn serious issues like gender equality, diversity, and many more, into trends, left only to be used as hashtags and clickbaits. They become concepts for capitalist promotion, not tools of change.

To a modern audience, with little to no tie to the original idea of James Bond, a female 007

should appear as great news. On the contrary, to an original Bond aficionado, who has read all the books, seen all the movies, dreamed of owning all the Bond cars and gadgets featured in the films, this appears as sacrilegious.

The issue here is not about racism or diversity. One can’t have 007 be a woman, and then have James Bond also exist in that world. James Bond’s parameters have been defined, the moment Fleming penned him on paper. To have the agent 007 be a woman, is not offensive, but neither is it inspiring. It is not fitting with the age-old Bond narrative. That would be like having a world where the portrait of James Bond has become universal. Slim build, scars down his cheek and on his left shoulder, all-around athlete, these and many more are terms used in From Russia with Love. 007 is excellent suits, high-tech Omegas, armed Aston Martins, and mad missions. It is not: diversity, equality, and the rest. It is fiction, a piece of art—Ian Fleming’s piece of art.

Ian Fleming is embedded in Bond in numerous ways, hidden in plain sight. Bond’s love of scrambled eggs, golf, and gambling can all be traced to Fleming’s own tastes. Bond uses the same toiletries and cigarettes Fleming loved. It is miniscule features like these that have forged the Bond we know today that make it terribly difficult to comprehend how James Bond can suddenly change in order to allow a person of color to play the part. This character and his backstory cannot be tailored to make James Bond anything else other than the ultimate spy. Bond is an old concept that has been adapted into film numerous times.

Actors have changed, cars have been replaced and often revived, but the core principles of James Bond have all survived. The agent 007 cannot exist without James Bond. Anyone else playing the part of 007 makes the iconic dialogue, “The name’s Bond. James Bond,” irrelevant.

Irrespective of copyrights, any film paying homage or incorporating Bond should never change the core principles that Fleming has set

on paper. To do so insults the memory of Ian Fleming.

Why persist in keeping Bond the way he is?

In order to understand that, one must understand, or rather loosely familiarize themselves, with Fleming’s depiction of James Bond. Ideally the right way to do this would be to read through an original novel. For those less initiated, one can easily head to the Ian Fleming website and learn a lot about the original Bond.

We learn that in You Only Live Twice, James was born in the early 1920s, to Andrew Bond and Monique Delacroix. His father was a Scottish sheep farmer. From what a reader gets by reading the books is that he is a part Scottish part Swiss Royal Navy officer. Written in the middle of the last century, it is perhaps permeable to speculate that Fleming’s James Bond was white. It is also interesting to note that like Bond, Fleming himself was the son of a Scotsman and was in naval intelligence during the war. The character is not only described perfectly by Fleming, but it is a part of him.

Casting Bond outside the character’s preconceived parameters is not therefore a creative thing to do. It is like a different artist repainting the Mona Lisa. Ian Fleming was a writer, an artist. James Bond was and still is his creation. To tamper with Bond is to interfere with art. Regardless, if such a thing was to be carried out, the audience reaction becomes an interesting perspective to ponder upon. 13 Reasons Why is perhaps a good example of what happens if things are changed too much. The Netflix series, an adaption of Jay Asher’s novel, follows the aftermath of the suicide of a teenage girl named Hannah, who left behind a series of tapes explaining why she chose to take her own life. The show is strong on the anti-bullying message.

The series garnered media attention in its third season, where it featured a completely new character with no relation to prior seasons or any of the show’s characters. It caused the audience to disengage with these unnecessary changes. This was also an example of a show bringing in a new cast member meant to diversify an existing property, but that also resulted in a fall in

ratings. It appears as if one of the producers randomly decided to add a female immigrant with a foreign accent in a small town and make her the focal point of the show! A significant proportion of the show’s audience responded negatively to this new character; an example of what happens if one plays too much with the original writer’s content.

No Time to Die is still yet to be released. But from what we know so far, it sounds drastically less appealing to a true Bond fan. Even if the film manages to succeed, it cheapens these very precious and serious concepts of race, identity, gender, equality, and many more. A James Bond film is not an ideal place to discuss and promote concepts as serious as these. A change that perhaps old Bond fans would appreciate would be keeping the role of agent 007 blank. The actress Lashana Lynch could have been given the role of agent 006 or 004. That way, we could still have James Bond, an interesting plot of why the number 007 is blank, and a diverse cast.

The fact that this is how Daniel Craig will be leaving the James Bond series is heartbreaking, not only for those who love the original James Bond, but for Ian Fleming as well. It is a movie that should have played by the rules of Bond’s

creator, and not by the rules of social media hashtags. James Bond is irreplaceable. He should have been immune to this last James Bond film, and not subject to modern audience readjustments. There is an Aston Martin, there will be an Omega, but there will be no Bond reporting for duty. If people want a spy tailored to their specifications, it is time for a new writer to come up with one. This is an interesting perspective that appears to be nonexistent. There are a lot of people who voice extremely powerful opinions on why there should be a female James Bond, or why James Bond should be a blank canvas for anybody to play, but very little on creating a new superspy.

James Bond was created in 1953. It is a successful franchise, but a poor foundation to create new stories for a new generation. There are lots of creative writers today, who create beautiful stories in their genres. Why not hand the pens of change to them, instead of putting all our hopes and dreams on a film that only uses serious issues like diversity for profits? It is high time for a new spy, with a new backstory for a new audience. It is time to let James Bond rest in peace.

Regardless of what No Time to Die holds for us, it will never feel like a James Bond film.

For people who disagree, and want Bond to be their canvas, the first African American actor to play a major Bond villain, Yaphet Kotto, had the ultimate response, when speaking with The Big Issue: “James Bond was established by Ian Fleming as a white character, played by white actors. Play 003 or 006, but you cannot be 007.

A lot of people say we should be allowed to play everything. Don’t be ridiculous. If I say I want to play JFK, I should be laughed out of the room.

Black men should stop trying to play roles created by whites. These roles are not written for black men. We have pens [to create] roles that no one else has established.”

illustrations by May Walker

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Why You Should Be Baking Sourdough An essay on the transformative effects of breadmaking

by Nick Gatlin illustrations by Greer Siegel The trencher. The staff of life. The body of Christ. Bread has gone by many names in our history, often imbued with intense cultural and religious significance. Someone who earns their household income is a breadwinner. To share a meal with someone is to break bread with them.

The Roman poet Juvenal, criticizing the public’s desire for distractions and indulgements, coined the phrase “bread and circuses.” The word companion comes from the Latin companis, “with bread.” Fertile farming regions, like the North American Wheat Belt in the Canadian and American west, are called breadbaskets.

Across the world, bread is a symbol of power, community, and life, connecting us across vast chasms of earth and time. One can imagine Roman chefs baking a loaf with candied fruits and seeds for the Emperor and his council; peasants in medieval Germany making bread and crackers for their family; Mayan home cooks frying corn tortillas and steamed tamales. And for most of history, humankind has leavened bread with some form of sourdough starter. The first recorded uses of wild yeast as a leavening agent come from the areas of both Switzerland and Egypt around 3500 BCE, and naturally-occuring yeast was used exclusively until the advent of commercial yeast in the 1800s. Sourdough 28

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is one of the oldest forms of one of the oldest foods—bread—in human history. Baking sourdough bread, the way countless generations of our ancestors baked bread, connects us to a long and storied tradition of community, creation, and connection. That’s why, even if you’ve never baked bread in your life, you should be baking sourdough.

My mother never taught me how to bake bread. She taught me how to bake banana bread—technically a cake, but I digress—and my grandmother gave me plenty of tips on how to bake cookies, but bread was never part of our family tradition. It’s a wonder, then, that when the quarantine went into effect, the first baked good I turned to was bread. Hearty, simple bread. Plain enough to complement any other food, yet flavorful and complex enough to be a fulfilling dish in itself. Bread has none of the flash nor style of other baked goods. It won’t satisfy a sweet tooth like an apple pie, and it won’t impress anyone like a layer cake or a braided babka. But despite its relative simplicity, bread is perhaps the most satisfying food of all.

Baking bread is easy. Baking bread well is incredibly hard. The difference between baking something like a beautiful fruit tart and baking a consistent, solid loaf of sourdough is much like the difference between sprinting and long-distance running.

I’ve been reading a lot more during quarantine. One book I’ve come across is Haruki

Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. In it, he writes (and I’m paraphrasing here) that long-distance running is something some people are naturally more suited for than others—some people have shorter strides, deeper, more measured breaths. But no one can naturally run a marathon. Something like that takes long, hard training and dedication day after day to gradually improve your time and perfect your form. Otherwise, you’ll burn out. Long-distance running uses a vastly different skill set than sprinting (again, so I’m told—I’m not much of a runner).

Baking sourdough is like long-distance running. There are no shortcuts. There are no tricks, no sleight-of-hand maneuvers you can pull to make your loaf come out perfect every time.

There is no foolproof method. Recipes are merely guidelines, wholly unable to adapt to your unique altitude, humidity, and temperature. To bake sourdough, you have to really learn how to bake sourdough. There’s simply no other way.

You have to learn through extensive trial and error, testing dozens of loaves before you bake one that you would be proud to serve to someone else. Before you even start baking bread, you have to create your starter. “Give birth” might be a better description. You have to raise your starter from infancy to maturity, from a shapeless mass of flour and water to a slightly less-shapeless mass of frothy, bubbly, yeasty levain. You create something alive, and like all things that

you made this. It’s the pride you feel knowing you could display it on a bakery shelf. It’s the satisfaction you feel when you tap on the perfectly browned, crispy crust and hear the hollow, delicate crumb inside. It’s the feeling that you, a human being, have created the most basic food that nearly every civilization throughout time has created. It’s what ties you to countless generations of humans before you—something at once primal yet sophisticated, simple yet elegant. To bake bread is to be human.

Baking sourdough is one of those skills that is impossible to fake. Like running a marathon, there is no way to cheat your way to the finish line. A sourdough loaf is the product of time, effort, and dedication; and no one can take that away from you. Anyone can mix a dough with Fleishman’s or Red Star and throw it in a bread machine. Sourdough requires patience—it can’t be bought. More should try it some time.

are alive, you have to feed it or else it will die.

Every day, without fail, you must feed it with flour (starch) and water, discard the excess, and burp it occasionally to release excess gas. Raising a sourdough starter is more like raising a baby than you’d think (I assume).

When you’re finally ready to bake your bread with your bubbling cauldron of wild yeast and lactobacillus bacteria, the dough you create with it will likely be wetter and stickier than any dough you’ve worked with before. Instead of kneading it on the countertop, you have to stretch and fold the dough until it just comes together to a cohesive, albeit deflated, ball. The first rise takes anywhere from 6 to 18 hours, much longer than any active dry or instant yeast. (Fun fact: bread could take almost a day to rise before the advent of commercial yeast, which is likely why the Children of Israel could only take unleavened bread when they fled Egypt. Neat!)

Shaping the dough isn’t any easier. It flops around and sticks to your hands, and you have to shape it very carefully to ensure it doesn’t lose any of the gas it took you hours to produce.

Chances are, unless you have a specialty baker’s lame, any knife you use to score your bread will likely tear and drag the top. It’s difficult to get those picture-perfect score marks that professional bakers seem to make so effortlessly.

But when it comes out just right?

The feeling of baking a perfect sourdough loaf is indescribable. It’s the feeling of knowing that THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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Skateboarding During Quarantine No-comply’s in compliance? article and photograph by Andrew Porter illustrations by Josh Gates

“STAY HOME SAVE LIVES.” You may have seen these signs around Portland in the recent weeks of the COVID epidemic.

These signs are a bit unsettling. Driving down Highway 26, I felt guilty passing underneath these words—as if I was harming others by not being home at that very moment.With 103 deaths and climbing due to COVID-19 in the state of Oregon and over 800 in Washington at the time of this publication, such a fear is not baseless. In addition, violating the stay at home orders issued

by Governor Kate Brown will net a $1,250 fine.

But what exactly are these parameters we should follow in order to stay safe and out of trouble?

Subsection D under the first item of Governor Kate Brown’s executive order states the following: “Individuals may go outside for outside recreational activities (walking, hiking, etc.), but must limit those activities to noncontact, and are prohibited from engaging in outdoor activities where it is not possible to maintain appropriate social distancing (six feet or more between individuals).”

Turns out, it’s fine to go outside for recreational activities as long as you’re able to maintain a sixfoot distance from anyone else—and during this period of quarantine it’s important that we all try to stay active. A recent study published in the Asian Journal of Sports Medicine cites evidence showing that exercise has positive effects on immune system health against respiratory infection. Therefore, the authors recommend that healthy asymptomatic people exercise in private environments or outdoors while paying special attention to social distancing in order to combat the COVID-19 virus. Not only that, but it’s also vital for mental health to get out and have some fun now and then instead of going stir-crazy.

Am I the only one who’s put on some weight over the quarantine? I feel like I’ve put on close to 19 pounds; binge watching Everybody Hates Chris and eating Nutella sandwiches has not been the most healthy lifestyle. If you’re like me and you’ve found yourself sitting at home stuffing your face while waiting for this whole 30

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crisis to blow over, I recommend finding some fun physical hobby that you can pursue safely outside before you morph into an angry, lazy hermit person.

I’ve been trying to stay active by skateboarding every day. Although the parks are closed, I’ve been taking the opportunity to skate downtown where it’s normally too crowded or too disruptive to skate during the operating hours of local businesses. Although skaters often get a bad rap, skateboarding is a creative physical activity that, with the right equipment and proper safety practices, can be enjoyed by all who are capable—even during this health epidemic. Whether you’re trying to kickflip into a krooked grind or if you’ve never skated and you just want to cruise down the street, there’s something magical to be enjoyed in unlocking the secrets behind this plank of wood and four wheels. It can also be one hell of a workout. By maintaining a safe distance from others, carrying hand sanitizer, and wearing a mask, elbow, and knee pads, skateboarders can minimize the risk of spreading and contracting bacteria while still having fun and staying active.

Cal Skate Skateboards, “the oldest skateshop on the planet,” is located in Chinatown, just down the street from the PSU campus, and continues to serve the local Portland skate scene

while enforcing social distancing. They just celebrated their 44th year of business last month and released a new shop deck, “Cat Hands by Drew,” with an awesome graphic from a local Portland artist, available for just $40.

While it’s smart to practice social distancing and order products online, it is also important to support local retail businesses who, along with Portland restaurants, are suffering during this pandemic. Cal Skate in particular has a detailed history of contributing to Portland’s skate scene, so you know that when you shop at Cal Skate your money is coming back to benefit the community.

Recently, I visited Cal Skate to purchase a new deck and to see how they were handling business in the current situation. I was greeted as usual with a friendly attitude from familiar faces, now donning monogrammed “Cal Skate” face masks and enforcing the 6-feet rule. Posted at the doors are signs instructing customers on

proper safety practices within the store as well as colored tape indicating safe standing distances around the counter. Despite the general uneasiness of going outside, Cal Skate remains a chill place to hang out without having to worry much about others getting too close. The store has a spacious interior; the walls are lined with local art, clothing, and other merchandise as well as a museum of antique skateboards and some impressive thrones made out of recycled skateboard decks that you can relax on while waiting for other customers.

One of the most unique things about skateboarding is the sense of community. I love going to a spot and seeing my friends or skating with people I’ve never met before. It’s awesome to share a passion with other people—to have fun together and push each other to progress or to just talk about who-did-what-where in the latest video part or issue of Thrasher. Cal Skate is a shining example of how the skateboarding community continues to thrive amid all the chaos of our current quarantine.

Please, do not undermine the state of national security and do your part to follow the executive orders of self-isolation. At the same time, don’t be afraid to get out and have some fun—as long as you’re careful and keep a safe distance from others. If you have extra time on your hands, skateboarding is a thrilling hobby—and with Olympic Skateboarding around the corner in July, right now is an awesome time to get involved. Just make sure to cover those hands with some sanitizer in order to keep your ollies looking clean and healthy.

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Virus of Nihilism Virus of Nihilism Virus of Nihilism Virus of Nihilism Losing hope will only cause more harm

by Van Vanderwall illustrations by Kami Gould

There are two viral pandemics underway. The second of these to occur, and the more literal, is that of the coronavirus. At the time of writing, more Americans have died from this virus than during the nearly two decades of armed conflict in Vietnam. Many reliable news organizations (and some unreliable ones that need not be named) are providing better coverage of the coronavirus than I can hope to do. It is the second of these viruses, the figurative one, that concerns this article.

I refer to the virus of nihilism. American society at all levels is beset by a sense of meaninglessness and futility; this pandemic has been building for some time and the coronavirus outbreak has only brought it into clearer focus.

Let us begin by considering the recent protests in 32

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Michigan and elsewhere to “open up” or “liberate” these states. Although protestors interviewed aver that they are not what this country calls conservatives, the verbal and visual codes say otherwise. Note how terms like “liberate” and performance art stunts like coordinated traffic jams and layered theatrical irony, which were once the province of the radical left in the 1960s and 1970s (Abbie Hoffmann and Jerry Rubin are the unlikely forefathers of Joey Gibson, Joe Biggs, and their ilk), have been appropriated by the far right. Now consider what these protestors, when interviewed, have to say about their role in spreading the disease: to summarize for clarity and grammar, their argument is that the pandemic is a problem which requires serious attention, but that their rallies will have no

appreciable effect on hastening the spread of the coronavirus. The words belie the actions: beneath the hollow, ideologically impoverished exhibitionism, their claim is that their existence does not affect other people and that their actions have no repercussions. Ponder that for a moment.

Large numbers of people rally, bandying about catchphrases and buzzwords that disguise their true aim, which is to fight the feeling of futility that pervades life.

This is not to say that such rallies are good, because they are not. (If you are under the impression that coronavirus is no big deal and that the only person affected by your decisions is yourself, I implore you to read up on epidemiology, human biology, virology, the history of infectious disease, and many other

relevant topics. You should also ask yourself why these protests were not broken up by police in riot gear, as similar protests by people who are not white have been.) The point is that by asserting their absence from the causal relations that govern the universe, these protestors are using the readily available means of far-right grievance to express their existential malaise.

(I hesitate to invoke the comparison, now sadly trite, of far-right movements in the past, and yet the German and Italian fascists operated with a similar enraged grievance thinly cloaked by false bravado and machismo.) Because people feel on an unconscious level that they have no effect on the world, they behave as nihilists (whatever their stated affiliations) and act accordingly in order to find evidence that they do exist and they do matter.

In a spiritual sense, each living being matters (and to be locked out of this awareness is to be in Hell, the realm of damnation); in the more immediate, more apparent, legal, political, and economic senses, they do not matter. Very few people in this country matter as legal/political/ economic entities and every apparatus of the state has been directed to this end for a long time: real (measured relative to the cost of living) and absolute (measured numerically) have declined continuously for decades; the health-care system has the world’s fanciest gear, but hardly anyone has a means of receiving said fancy treatments, let alone the less elaborate treatments they need; most forms of labor have been utterly stripped of meaning; the financial structure acts as a siphon to funnel capital up and debt down (which socalled “trickle down” economics hardly disguises as pissing on the poor); and to claim that people should be paid enough to live at a subsistence level without accruing debt is considered an

extremist position. This is a deplorable state of affairs, but it is at present the truth, and it is the animating principle beneath the social upheavals with which we have been beset for the last few years. Indeed, the factions that have violently confronted each other numerous times in Portland and other American cities are, with this understanding of nihilistic malaise, actually in agreement about futility.

This infection by the virus of nihilism will fester longer than the coronavirus pandemic if left unaddressed. Outbursts will become more theatrical, more dangerous, and more divorced from identifiable principles. Myriad changes in law, from international trade agreements on down to city ordinances, must be revised to allow people to live and work in meaningful ways and not to be chattel in all but name.

One immediate change each person reading this piece can make is to examine the principles underlying preferences. Look into the rhetoric of the groups to which one professes allegiance, and opposing ones, to understand what are the axiomatic beliefs on which the rest of the ideology is erected. For example, these groups asking to “reopen the economy” and to be “liberated” (per Twitter instructions from the vile one) are bandying about catchphrases that have emotional resonance but no meaning. Liberate—as in liberate them from strictures that attenuate the transmission of a disease, so that they can die?

Would this “liberation” resemble the response to the bubonic plague by medieval European governments, whose subjects were quite free to die? Follow the investigation further and ask how it is that “the economy,” which doesn’t necessarily promise remunerative and meaningful work to those storming capitol buildings with guns, is more important than people, including those

who seem to see their lives as so futile and unreal that they would demand a “reopened economy” instead of their own flourishing.

Study causality—and I mean this in earnest.

In primary school there are rudimentary lessons on the distinctions between fact and opinion, cause and effect, but one ought not discard these lessons upon maturity. To paraphrase the Buddha, Dogen, and others, to investigate causation is to investigate the nature of existence; coronavirus, violent rallies, punitive moral and legal strictures, and abstractions like “the economy” are all facets of existence and when one understands how one fits into this web and what one’s beliefs are, the way will become plain.

This time is an opportunity for a great collective awakening, if the lessons presented to us are heeded. If those lessons are ignored, we can expect this existential malaise to continue to fester until a worse disruption than this one (which could be an even more virulent contagious disease) causes a cataclysm. Never give in to the coronavirus and never give in to the virus of nihilism.

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The Trolls Have Killed Cinema… Maybe Supporting local theaters is more important than ever

by McKinzie Smith illustrations by Bailey Granquist You may have seen some attention-grabbing headlines in the past month regarding the future of the movie theater. “‘Trolls World Tour’ Seems to Prove Movie Studios Don’t Need Theaters” and “‘Trolls World Tour Straight to Streaming—Sign of the Times or the New Normal?” seem to spell disaster for the movie theater industry at the hands of…the Trolls franchise?

Actually, the issue is more complex than it first appears. To understand what’s going on, let us first look at the Universal Pictures v. AMC Theatres feud.

Universal is the owner of the Trolls franchise.

As the owners of the franchise, they saw the budget of the newest installment, Trolls World Tour (somewhere between $90–100 million), and started to sweat. The pandemic had shut down movie theaters all over the world, so how were they going to make that money back? They had one option: video on demand. In a mere three weeks, Trolls World Tour had already made back its budget. This came as a welcomed shock to NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell. “As soon as 34

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theaters reopen, we expect to release movies on both formats,” he promised. In response, AMC Theatres vowed to never show a Universal movie ever again. If any other studios decided to do simultaneous theater and VOD releases in the future, they too would be banned. It’s a fight between our collective past and a potential future; if all distribution companies did as Universal may, theaters would likely close en masse.

First, aren’t both companies being a bit petty?

Well, yes. But no one ever said business wasn’t full of petty fights. Ignoring the players entirely, what would you rather see happen? Should companies release films VOD at the same time as the theaters, giving the consumer more choice in how they view their product? Or should they keep with the theater model, allowing theaters to flourish and provide a more luxury experience? Personally, I’m in favor of the old model.

Theaters provide an important experience and they simply cannot survive a dual VOD/theater model.

The biggest argument in favor of VOD re-

leases is the price. Trolls World Tour is currently available for rental on Amazon Video for $19.99. For the typical viewers of a Trolls film, this is a great price. Seeing that the average movie ticket is $9.26, a family of four would save a whopping $17.05. However, this argument only works for families or groups. If VOD were the main model for viewing new movies, dates and single film viewers would be getting a substantially worse price, with a single viewer paying an extra $10.73. In fact, families would get the better deal overall; no having to take your kid to the theater and hoping they stay quiet in their seat, no overpriced candy concessions, no having to pay attention to a kids movie you might not even like.

For the rest of us, this would be an unfortunate blow. My boyfriend and I used to go to the movies almost every weekend before this started.

Not only would we be paying more for a VOD movie, we wouldn’t be getting the theater experience. No matter what you think about movie theaters, the theater experience is entirely unique

from the typical home viewing: The big screen, the dark room, the state-of-the-art sound system. No glare from your window on the screen, no distractions. Not to mention, going out to the theater doesn’t just stimulate the theater business.

Going to the theater is accompanied by going to a restaurant or bar for dinner. Depending on the area we’re in, we’ll probably go into stores and look around before we see the movie. A movie date isn’t just a movie date, it’s a whole evening of supporting local businesses.

I’m tempted to say that family films should be available for VOD while other films, from Marvel blockbusters to festival indies, do theater only releases. However, family films tend to make substantially more money than those that aren’t family friendly (an average of $40.7 million per film as opposed to $19.8 million per film). Even if only family films were given VOD releases, the theater industry would still lose out on necessary funds. This has the potential to be a long conversation between studios, theaters, and consumers once we begin to move out of the pandemic.

For those of you like me, who do believe in the theater and all it has to offer, there are ways to help. If AMC shoots itself in the foot with this stunt, there are still other theaters. Portland is host to a large selection of indie theaters. These are the businesses that truly need your help. They were never going to show Trolls World Tour anyway, but they are still at risk during this crisis (more so than a corporation like AMC or Regal).

These are the theaters that were always reasonably priced, with unique selections and devoted film-going communities. If you’re one of those devotees, check the list below for ways to support your favorite local theater: 5th Avenue Cinema: PSU’s student-run cinema is supported by university funds, so you’re already doing your part by being a student!

However, they have an actually-really-good podcast hosted by 5th Ave employees in the meantime. You can find it on their website at http://www.5thavecinema.com/.

Cinema 21: NW Portland’s best indie theater has t-shirts and gift cards available here: https://www.cinema21.com/.

Clinton Street Theater: The Clinton has gone virtual! Rent and stream arthouse films directly from the Clinton Street Theater at https://cstpdx.com/.

Hollywood Theatre: There are multiple ways to support the Hollywood. You can rent and stream films on their website, give a one-time donation, buy merch and gift cards, or become a member at https://hollywoodtheatre.org/.

Laurelhurst Theater: Gift cards are available on their website https://www.laurelhursttheater.com/.

Living Room Theaters: The downtown cinema is hosting special event virtual rentals on https://fau.livingroomtheaters.com/.

McMenamins theaters: McMenamins owns multiple theaters in the Portland area including the Bagdad, the Kennedy School, Mission Theater, and St. Johns Theater. McMenamins restaurants are currently open for take-out.

NW Film Center: The Film Center shows films at the Portland Art Museum’s Whitsell Theater as well as organizes the Portland International Film Festival. You can donate one time to both PAM and NWFC or become a member at https://nwfilm.org/.

At the end of the day, we can’t know the future of the theater. It depends more on what consumers choose to do than anything the studios or theaters will attempt. The Trolls won’t kill cinema; only we can do that. As long as there are still people supporting cinemas, they won’t ever truly go away.

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TIGER KING FO R A DAY

by Jake Johnson illustrations by Josh Gates

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Hypocrisy, complicity, and desperation

"But the most compelling connection we have to Exotic is how the struggles we face can lead us to inexplicably do whatever it takes to survive."

Toward the end of March you could hardly go anywhere without encountering a Tiger King reference. Netflix benefited from an audience trapped in their homes, and when the series was released on March 20th it immediately skyrocketed. And rightly so, it’s insane. However, the popularity of Tiger King is surprising because it’s a documentary.

It is a story about desperation and the fight for survival—classic and relatable. Wild Wild Country was another serialized Netflix documentary whose focus was largely on intractable conflict. However, unlike that series, in Tiger King we do not find out what happened in the end. We are mostly left with questions about what exactly happened and are mostly unsure of how the bizarre events occurred or managed to be chronicled. We don’t know what will become of Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, Doc Antle, and the many other colorful characters surrounding them. The story has not finished.

Perhaps this lack of answers is what makes the story so compelling. Tommy Orange’s fictional novel There There about Native Americans coming to an Oakland Powwow involves several separate characters and their individual storylines as they weave together in bizarre ways—Crash did it, yes, but it works well and is a great approach to storytelling and character development. The book ends rather abruptly and leaves the reader grasping for answers. In reading that book we are not fulfilled by the resolution of our characters’ stories, instead we are satiated by the beautifully complicated narrative arcs, truths, and experiences we have along the way. The same goes for the man who would have us call him the Tiger King.

Joe Exotic is a nearly-perfect antihero for our contemporary present: a polyamorous gay man who loves straight men and has the guns, drugs, and exotic lifestyle to not only seduce them but

us, the viewers, as well. Joe Exotic’s love of excess and shiny, sequined shirts seem more suited for Vegas than the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma. Exotic is oddly familiar, like he could be a leather-daddy sex tourist you might find in the BDSM basement of a Berlin club or walking and waving along the Folsom Street Fair parade route.

However, the show’s power doesn’t come from the fact that a gun-blasting, shit-talking, gay hillbilly with a bleached mullet exists and has a private zoo with a ton of tigers in it. It is in the show’s character development, and how we try and fail to understand why Exotic and those around him did what they did.

Tiger King is compelling because Exotic is far from perfect. No, maybe we don’t identify with Exotic’s seemingly never-ending need to fire shotguns and AR-15s into a lake. No, perhaps we don’t identify with having feuds with animal rights people or hiring security to keep them out of our personal space. But the most compelling connection we have to Exotic is how the struggles we face can lead us to inexplicably do whatever it takes to survive.

Joe Exotic grew up as a repressed gay man who was basically disowned by his father because of his homosexuality. This led Exotic to try to kill himself. Perhaps it was his love of animals that saved him. But his love of animals is particularly contested by one animal rights person in particular, his nemesis Carole Baskin. Baskin doesn’t believe Exotic should be allowed to have tigers in cages because it’s cruel; but for some reason she feels that her cages are morally acceptable sanctuaries. For some reason Carole Baskin believes that people should feel good about paying money to visit her sanctuary but should feel bad for patronizing Exotic’s. This subtly overt examination of hypocrisy is the moral crux of the show.

We are confronted with our complicated complicity in the subpar treatment of animals. How are our “public zoos” better than Exotic’s G.W. Zoo? What about our pets and the animals we eat? What about the use of great apes in scientific studies? What about the areas of the rainforests that are cleared for cattle grazing to provide food to meat eaters and grow soybeans for the vegetarians and vegans? What animals do we care about, which ones are expendable, and why the distinction? If we create a society that allows a practice, and then outlaw that practice, how do we support the people whose lives have been built around that practice and help them transition to whatever we decide is the new acceptable mode of operation within this society?

The series should have ended after episode seven as it originally aired. Instead, Netflix compromised the original creative vision and ruined it with a “bonus episode” featuring Joel McHale thinking he’s funny while talking to various people from the show on video chat. Everything compelling about the show was thrown out in the “8th episode.” To future viewers and those who haven’t finished the series yet, stop after the 7th episode, that is the end of the show. The production quality of this bonus was decidedly poor—the coronavirus is not an acceptable excuse. A better way to follow it up would have been to create a separate category of the show and give us some of the extra footage lying around on the editing room floor. Give us an hour of tiger footage. An even better bonus would have been to give us the original documentary by J.D. Thomspon, The Life Exotic: The Incredible True Story of Joe Schreibvogel.

However, Netflix’s choice to give us this “bonus” garbage is a great example of how to finally get people to turn their TVs off and do something else instead.

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Cultural Food Appropriation Support restaurants operated by minorities

illustratons by Greer Siegel

by Andrew Porter Lately, I’ve been really missing eating out around town. One of my favorite things about Portland is its diverse mix of cultural restaurants and foods—this was evident when you could visit food carts and see all the different cultures represented on one block. However, just because Portlanders like pad thai does not mean that we’ve erased racism from our community.

According to a 2018 report by the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are 41,440 minority-owned businesses in the state of Oregon.

Out of the 368,308 small businesses in the state, this shows that only 11% of Oregon businesses are owned by minorities, even though racial minorities make up about 25% of Oregon’s population. Compared to the country’s 30% minority ownership, it’s clear that Oregon has a lot of catching up to do in terms of creating a more inclusive and diverse market.

This gross underrepresentation can be attributed to a number of systemic issues, including the state and city’s history of racism. However, the more important question is what can we do now to create a more multicultural society?

A few years ago, there was some controversy over a food cart started by two white women who had learned how to make tortillas on a visit to Mexico. There was a critical reaction of people accusing the owners of cultural appropriation, accumulating into hostile threats towards the owners that pressured them to close down.

Of course such violence is inexcusable, but it’s important to understand that it comes from a place of frustration. This conflict was articulated 38

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in an infamous document (now removed) that was posted online in the midst of this uproar—a list that cited about 60 Portland-area restaurants which the unknown authors dubbed as “WhiteOwned Appropriative Restaurants.”

People were offended by this list and perhaps felt like it was unfair to label these restaurants as “appropriative.” The authors explained, however, that their intention and their focus was on inequality: “This is NOT about cooking at home or historical influences on cuisines; it’s about profit, ownership, and wealth in a white supremacist culture.”

When a person opens up a restaurant attempting to recreate and sell another culture’s food, they are taking that culture’s culinary traditions and employing them for profit.

More importantly, their success takes business away from owners who are legitimately part of that culture and who are already disadvantaged in a disproportionately white-owned market. As the authors go on to point out, “It’s a cyclical pattern that will require intentional behavior change to break.”

I do not mean to condemn those white owners or the patrons who enjoy their food by any means. I am only arguing that it’s important to consider who is behind the businesses we patronize and to support minorities and authentic representation in an unequal market.

The authors of the list clarified this argument in their call to action: “This has nothing to do with enjoying foods from other cultures,

like we all do. This is about recognizing and working to correct a power imbalance in our society that is the result of centuries of institutionalized racism and unchecked capitalism.”

It’s awesome to want to celebrate and share another culture’s cuisine. However, there is an ongoing disparity in our city, in our state, in our country. Like it has been since the very beginning when this land was stolen from its indigenous inhabitants, white men rule everything, and this domination of capital makes it difficult for minorities to succeed. In order to break this cycle and even the playing field for an equal opportunity market, it is essential to make a conscious effort to support minority-owned businesses. I think this is especially true when they are culturally themed, and this of course includes cuisine.

If I’m buying Filipino food, I’d rather my money go to an auntie than to a chain run by some rich white guy—especially considering the recent rise of xenophobia toward Asian Americans and the decline of business at Asian operated restaurants due to the spread of misinformation and bigoted fears about the coronavirus. Now is as good a time as ever to support those who need it.

Unions on the Silver Screen

by Nick Gatlin illustrations by Hailey Blum

In recent years and months, organized labor has moved to the forefront of our collective consciousness. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, essential workers have planned strikes against companies like Amazon, Target, and Instacart. Workers like truck drivers and nurses have warned that anti-union actions have been stepped up during the pandemic, and Amazonowned Whole Foods was recently revealed to have a “heat map” of stores most likely to unionize.

The pandemic and its effect on low-income essential workers has made labor organizing more pressing than any time in recent memory.

Workers’ health and safety literally hang in the balance. So why is it that only 11.6% of jobs were represented by a union in 2019? Why do corporations like Delta Airlines fight so hard against unions that they would release propaganda like one such poster telling workers to “put their money towards [a gaming system] instead of paying dues to the union?” And more importantly, why does it work? Why are so many workers opposed to unions, seemingly against their own interests?

Popular media has a massive effect on how we view the world around us. Films have depicted labor unions both positively and negatively over the years, perpetuating many of the stereotypes we think about when we think about unions.

Think of the corrupt union boss; the greedy corporate leadership; the heroic striking workers. These images, rooted in reality, have been simplified and amplified by movies. Some of these films are meant to push an agenda, and some just show their own unconscious bias. In any case, films can play a major role in shaping public opinion about organized labor.

On the Waterfront (1954) One could argue that this movie is the archetypal appearance of the “corrupt labor leader” in the media. The story is a classic piece of Americana; Terry Molloy, a dockworker caught up in the mob, is horrified when fellow worker Joey is murdered by mob boss Johnny Friendly, president of the local. The dockworkers are completely controlled by their tyrannical union, which decides who gets to work and who has to go home every morning. Lazy workers get to lay around all day while hard workers break their back for nothing. “I’m poorer now than when I started here,” one worker says. The cops know they can’t get anything out of the union, because all the dockworkers are D&D, deaf and dumb.

If they talk, they’ll be blacklisted from every dock in town.

Terry gets served with a subpoena by the Waterfront Crime Commission, and after much thought (and after becoming romantically involved with Joey’s sister Edie) he decides to testify against Johnny Friendly, breaking the union’s iron grip on the dockworkers and freeing them from the crushing weight of the mob.

To put it lightly, unions are not portrayed very favorably.

To give some context: in the early years of the Cold War, the “Hollywood Blacklist” ended the careers of anyone in the entertainment industry who was suspected to be a communist or communist sympathizer. The director of On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and named multiple directors, actors, and playwrights who he believed were communists, ending their careers. Organized labor hit a little too close to home for anti-communists at the time, which might explain the great lengths Kazan goes to in

order to highlight his fictional union’s corruption, violence, and extortion.

The film deals less with the workers’ plight and more with Terry’s personal and romantic development. It seems to care little for the workers’ autonomy to decide their own future, instead casting Terry as the hero of the story, the rugged individualist who makes it his mission to end the union’s reign of terror. There is no mention of solidarity in the film’s message, nor the importance of collective action. Instead, it’s Terry against the world. The corporation for which the longshoremen work isn’t even mentioned, and the police are made out to be the workers’ friends. (Even a cursory glance at labor history shows how untrue this is.)

All in all, On the Waterfront single-handedly amplified most of the negative stereotypes we have about unions today. That’s without mentioning the nauseating misogyny and outright sexual assault present in some scenes. Considering all that, please don’t watch this movie. Trust me.

It’s bad.

Salt of the Earth (1954) What a breath of fresh air this movie is. Released the same year as On the Waterfront, the two films could not be more different. Salt of the Earth wears its radical politics on its sleeve.

The movie is based on a real-life zinc miners’ strike against the Empire Zinc Company, based in New Mexico. The film revolves around the miners and their wives in the fight to improve working conditions and sanitation in their company-owned housing. When the company threatens the strikers with legal action, the miners’ wives take up the picket line. Eventually, after threats, arrests, and the eviction of one of the families, the strikers win after gathering THE PACIFIC SENTINEL

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support from the international union and the local community.

The film is notable in that it focuses on social justice and feminist politics, unusual for movies at the time. The miners are mostly Mexican American, and the main protagonists are the women who stand up to the company and the male-dominated union. They succeed in opening up the union to all genders, and force the company and their husbands to take their needs seriously. For a movie made in 1954, it’s surprisingly progressive in its handling of race and gender. It emphasizes the need for racial and gender solidarity, and pits the workingclass heroes against their common enemy, the company. Also notable is the fact that the majority of the actors were actually miners themselves.

The writer, producer, and director of the film were all blacklisted from the Hollywood establishment for their alleged communist views.

It was supported by the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, and the movie was considered “subversive” and even condemned by the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite (or maybe because of) the difficulties of its production, Salt of the Earth stands even today as one of the most radical movies ever made, and its unabashed support for the power of unions is remarkable to this day.

learns to use a “white voice” to sell to white customers. He quickly gets promoted to a Power Caller position, while the rest of the workers unionize and strike for better working conditions. Cassius crosses the picket line to his new, high-paying job while the rest of his coworkers strike day after day. He eventually discovers some unseemly actions by the company (no spoilers) and decides to rejoin the union in the fight against the company.

The film, written and directed by activist Boots Riley, offers a not-so-subtle critique of capitalism and its effect on our lives. One company referenced in the film, WorryFree, literally signs workers into lifetime contracts in exchange for free housing and food—essentially a cushy version of slavery. The company is extremely popular in the Sorry to Bother You world; the film’s popular media portrays it as a fun alternative to wage labor rather than the dystopian nightmare it is. Cassius’s uncle even considers signing his life away to the company in order to escape his crippling debt.

Sorry to Bother You is one of those rare modernday films that actually shows unions in a positive light, and more importantly, shows the workers winning. The workers have the agency and the power to actually effect change. That alone makes Sorry to Bother You one of the more radical films released today.

Sorry to Bother You (2018) Sorry to Bother You is a great representation of what it’s like when a company tries to divide its workers. Cassius Green works for the telemarketing company RegalView, where he

The Irishman (2019) The corruption of the mob-controlled International Brotherhood of Teamsters is on full display in The Irishman, told from the perspective of mob hitman Frank Sheeran. Frank

Sally Field as Norma Rae Webster in the film Norma Rae, based on the real-life experience of union organizer Crystal Lee Sutton.

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begins as a truck driver for a steak company and quickly moves up the ranks of the Teamsters, starting with petty theft and rising to inter-union sabotage and cold-blooded murder.

The film depicts the IBT as a kind of fanatical cult of personality around its president, Jimmy Hoffa. The union is a hierarchical web of mob bosses and corrupt labor leaders. Crucially, the workers themselves are almost never shown, and they have no agency to affect the union that supposedly represents them. When Hoffa yells “Solidarity!” to a screaming crowd of Teamsters, it feels like a sick, ironic joke. The union appears to devote most of its time to dealing with Attorney General Bobby “Boobie” Kennedy, doling out millions of dollars from the pension fund to mafia enterprises, and sabotaging corporations and rival unions alike.

To be sure, Jimmy Hoffa wasn’t an ideal labor leader—just read his Wikipedia page. The Teamsters were marred by corruption for much of their history, and the film doesn’t shy away from it. But if your only exposure to labor unions was from hyper-violent, double-dealing depictions like this movie, of course you’d have a negative opinion of them. To be fair, though, The Irishman doesn’t make the case against unions, but rather against unions like the one shown in the movie.

Bottom line: if your union employs hitmen, run.

Anti-union corporate films Corporate anti-union propaganda is the most immediate form of anti-union messaging in most people’s lives. If you’ve worked for a mediumto-large corporation, chances are you’ve seen a film like these.

An Amazon training video encourages managers to actively seek out any “potential warning signs” of organizing, including: employees using words like “living wage,” “steward,” “grievance,” or “contract;” an employee speaking on behalf of their coworkers; employees suddenly spending time together; employee interest in company policy or benefits; or a “change in passion.” If this feels more than a little dystopian, it is. Amazon is so afraid of labor organizing that they will prevent even friendly relations between coworkers if it seems like they possibly might unionize. Amazon works to actively discourage solidarity on every level, and this video proves it.

Target’s ridiculous video claims that the corporation and its workers are a “family,” and argue that union representation would break the line of “direct communication” between them.

This trope comes up time and time again in these kinds of anti-union videos. Ironically, Target used union actors to film the video, but they won’t mention that. They also hammer the idea that “a union is a business with no product to sell,” claiming that unions are just greedy moneygrubbers looking to increase their membership rolls. Sound familiar?

Delta Airlines’ “Don’t Risk It, Don’t Sign It” video is pretty unremarkable and vapid; I can’t imagine it would actually convince anyone.

It continues the theme that the business is a “family,” claiming the union “is attempting to disrupt the very culture that makes Delta different.” This erases the reality of the employer-

employee relationship, of course, purposefully ignoring the fact that anyone who controls your livelihood controls your life. Does that sound like a happy family to you?

A strangely sitcom-like FedEx anti-union film features a barbeque between “friends” (they don’t seem to like each other very much). The guys sit at the grill, and the cook gives the other guys the “straight talk” about the union (i.e. that it’s bad).

The women in the kitchen (yes, seriously) talk about the union drive as the cook’s wife shows the other woman a FedEx corporate video with scary narration and three spooky words: “RISKS / CHANGES / UNCERTAINTY,” referring to the possible effects of a union. As an effective piece of propaganda, it’s pretty ineffective. But as a cheesy sitcom? 10/10.

Unions are a “tricky subject” in a Lowe’s video, which trains managers how to talk to employees who “often think they know more about unions than they really do,” and implores them to report any union activity to the higherups ASAP. It also engages in some revisionist history, claiming that unions are a thing of the past, and “employee-friendly companies” and worker protection laws make organized labor obsolete. It repeats the “unions are a business” lie that the Target ad focused on, and it encourages coworkers to snitch on each other. Lame.

A K-Mart video needs no explanation. Just listen to the opening song and you’ll want to

unionize.

An anti-union consultant video, aimed at management, uses fear mongering and scare tactics to prevent unions “plotting against [their] business” from gaining a foothold. It tells the “shocking truth” of how labor unions want to “destroy the credibility of your business” and “stop at nothing” to “destroy you personally.”

Again, these corporate films are what most people will have exposure to, as management will often show these to employees to discourage union activity. That means that these types of movies have the most impact out of any films on public opinion of unions. If your company takes time out of the day to show you these movies, wouldn’t that stick with you?

American Factory (2019) American Factory is a documentary that tells the story of the Fuyao glass factory in Moraine, Ohio, where a GM factory had closed years prior. It shows the perspective of the Chinese business owners and American workers in their struggle to get the factory running and to get their livelihoods back, respectively.

The story is not a good one for the workers.

Some of the glass makers have to stand in 200 degrees Farenheit rooms for 10 minutes every hour. A glass inspector compares her experience at the GM factory to her experience now: “At General Motors, I was making $29 and some

change an hour...at Fuyao, I make $12.84.” She laments her inability to buy her kids shoes, and recounts how she lost her home and car when the plant closed. A forklift operator says she has “struggled to get back to middle class again...I’ve been living in my sister’s basement.”

The company is dedicated to stamping out any pro-union activity. At the factory opening, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown gave his support to a union vote—the vice president of the company tells another worker, “I’m gonna have to kill a senator...I’m gonna take those big scissors and cut Senator Brown’s head.” The company chairman says to other executives, “If we have a union, it will impact our efficiency, thus hurting our company.” That kind of sentiment is widespread at Fuyao Glass.

When the workers do try to start a union drive with the United Auto Workers (UAW), the company does everything they can to stop it. One worker, who walked around the factory with a “UNION YES” sign, was escorted off the premises by private security. “Sometimes you’ve gotta be Sally Field,” he tells the cameras— referencing the famous scene in the film Norma Rae when the main character holds up a “UNION” sign in a textile mill. The company brings in an anti-labor consulting firm to scare the workers and warn them about the “dangers” of a union, using many of the same tactics used in the corporate videos referenced before.

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The film is the perfect example of how antiunion stereotypes have seeped into everyday workers’ minds. Many of the workers are skeptical of the union, worrying that they will not benefit and lazy workers will get paid more for doing nothing. They worry that the company will shut down the plant due to inefficiency, and think, “I’m doing well enough now. Why do I need a union?” They consider themselves lucky to even have a job, and the idea that they deserve better feels overindulgent. When the pro-union workers try to convince them, they’re concerned about bringing a third-party into the workplace.

Nearly all of the tropes mentioned in this article make their way into the Fuyao workplace.

Devastatingly, the union vote failed 886–441.

Today, presumably, the workers are in the same position they were when the documentary was filmed. One can only hope that one day, Fuyao employees will get back to where they were even ten years ago, let alone improve their conditions to keep up with the rising cost of living.

on the rise during the COVID-19 pandemic. But unions are still in arguably their worst state since the beginning of the modern labor movement.

The next time you hear the company line on unions, or hear a coworker or friend repeat a negative stereotype about organized labor, ask yourself: why? Where are they getting their ideas about unions? How much has our collective attitude about organized labor been shaped by the media? And in the information age, it’s even more important to be critical of the media we consume. It shapes us more than we know.

What does it all mean?

Today, union membership is lower than it has been in decades. Union petitions and elections are occurring at lower rates, too. To be fair, strikes of all kinds—work, school, and rent—are

Al Pacino as corrupt union leader Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman 42

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FUNNY PAGE Comics by Josh Gates

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